On September 24, I joined other peace colleagues for a meeting with President Mahmoud Pezeshkian of Iran. It was the fourth year I represented FCNL in a meeting with the Iranian President on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and my second time meeting with President Pezeshkian, who was elected in 2024 after the more hardline President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash.
This week, the catastrophic suffering of Palestinians in Gaza reached “new depths” as mass starvation takes a heart-wrenching toll.
Faith leaders, lawmakers, rights groups, and other advocates are challenging the Trump administration over inhumane conditions at the Everglades Immigrant Detention Center.
The detention center, referred to by the grotesquely offensive name “Alligator Alcatraz,” is holding thousands of people detained in ICE raids across the country, many of whom have no criminal records.
Next week, the Senate is expected to vote on a bill with life-or-death consequences for millions of the world’s most vulnerable people.
Right now, the Trump administration is pushing Congress to cancel, or “rescind,” funding it has already directed towards life-saving foreign aid for people in need.
“I’m so scared. I can hear the explosions near our home,” my aunt in Tehran whispered to me, her voice shaking over the phone. “May God help us all for what’s coming.”
This weekend, the Senate is expected to vote on President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill (H.R.1).
Nothing is “beautiful” about this morally bankrupt budget proposal. As one advocate put it, it is better described as a “blueprint for cruelty.” If passed, it will do enormous harm to so many of us – working families, vulnerable children, immigrant communities, and many others.
The Trump Administration’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities is illegal, unconstitutional, and a violation of international law. The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) calls on Congress to immediately hold President Donald Trump accountable for launching an unauthorized military action against Iran and embroiling the Middle East in a dangerous expansion of war.
A return to diplomacy is urgently needed to prevent more tragedy.
The U.S. is edging dangerously close to another unauthorized war in the Middle East. Recent escalations between Israel and Iran—sparked by Israel’s unprovoked airstrikes in June—have brought the region to the brink of a full-blown regional war.
While the media is largely portraying the Yemen group chat scandal as a case of incompetence, it’s overlooking the deadly, illegal, and ineffective nature of the strikes themselves—as well as the very real danger of an escalating military conflict with not only the Houthis in Yemen, but also Iran.
FCNL welcomes the release of five United States citizens who were unjustly detained in Iran.
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