Federal buildings are supposed to be pillars of justice—places where the Constitution is upheld and the public is served. Today, they are being turned into sites of humanitarian crisis, fear, and secrecy.

As federal workers, we took an oath—not to a party or a president, but to the Constitution. That oath demands we uphold the rule of law, defend human dignity, and protect the public good.

The Trump administration is using federal agencies and public services to target immigrants, union leaders, and entire communities. We refuse to be silent. Federal workers in New York City, Chicago, and Seattle are taking bold action on Wednesday, June 25, to say: Our workplaces are not jails. We serve the public—not political agendas. We know our oath. Now we’re taking a stand.

Federal buildings—meant to serve the public, uphold justice, and safeguard rights—are being turned into lawless arenas where immigrants are harmed, detained without transparency, and stripped of their basic human rights. In Los Angeles this took the form of a three-year-old being held in a basement for 48 hours with only a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers, and a mini carton of milk as rations for each day. As for water? One bottle, shared amongst an entire family of five each day in stifling heat. Even members of Congress have been blocked from entering the buildings to conduct oversight and address these atrocities. It is an offense to the values we swore to uphold. It is an offense to the people federal workers serve. And it is an offense to the Constitution itself.

It is also part of a broad and menacing trend.

The arrest of labor leader David Huerta outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles and the recent arrest of mayoral candidate Brad Lander at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City, the aggressive federal raids against immigrant communities, the continued use of public facilities to detain families in inhumane conditions—these are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of an administration weaponizing the federal government against the very people it is meant to protect.

These acts of cruelty are part of a coordinated agenda that started with the attacks on federal workers led by Trump allies like Russ Vought and billionaires like Elon Musk. These powerful figures seek to hollow out the federal government, discredit its workforce, and replace a democratic administrative state with a machinery of personal loyalty, abuse, and private enrichment.

The anti-immigrant agenda and the attack on federal workers are both designed to dehumanize, divide, and distract. Immigrants are scapegoated to justify authoritarian crackdowns. Federal workers who resist or blow the whistle are demonized as part of a so-called “deep state.” The result is a chilling feedback loop in which the government is turned against its own people—both those it serves and those who serve within it.

This is why federal workers are speaking out. They are reclaiming their role as caretakers of the public trust and know they must take back their workplaces. They are saying: Not in our name. Not in our buildings. Not with our labor.

We know the price of silence. History tells us that the erosion of democracy begins not with a bang, but with the quiet normalization of abuse—where violence is rationalized as “procedure,” where rights are discarded due to “exceptions,” where cruelty is described as “necessary enforcement.” But federal workers are not here to normalize harm. We are here to raise the alarm.

Federal workers chose public service because we believe in something bigger than ourselves: a government that serves all people, not just the wealthy, not just the powerful, not just the politically connected. This administration has betrayed that mission.

As former federal workers we know that our former co-workers are not the “deep state.” They are the real state—the people who keep this country running, who serve the people, who hold the line when democracy is under siege. We are standing up because we believe that public service is still noble. That government can still be just. That our federal workplaces can still reflect our highest values.

We took an oath. Now we are taking a stand.

Alissa Tafti is a federal union leader, economist, and Co-Executive Director of the Federal Unionist Network, a worker-led effort to defend democracy and transform the federal government from within.

Chris Dols served as cost engineer and value officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New York where he was elected President of IFPTE Local 98. Chris is a founding organizer of the Federal Unionists Network, which has organized mass actions to defend federal workers’ rights across the country.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.