The second phase of protests against President Donald Trump was held across the US as part of the mass moment organised by group 50501, under which 50 demonstrations were staged in 50 states for one movement.
Thousands gathered to participate in 400 rallies held in various states, following the massive first phase of protest that took place on April 5, AFP reported.
The website of the chief organiser of Saturday’s protests, group 50501, said the protests are “a decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies,” stressing on all protests being non-violent.
The group had appealed for millions to participate in the Saturday protests, though turnout was smaller than the “Hands Off” protests across the country on April 5.
According to an AFP report, people in New York rallied outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting Trump with slogans like “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.”
Several people slammed Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting “No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” referring to the role of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in detaining migrants.
What Protesters Said
Protesters in Washington raised concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional principles, including the right to due process.
The administration is carrying out “a direct assault on the idea of the rule of law and the idea that the government should be restrained from abusing the people who live here in the United States,” Benjamin Douglas, 41, told AFP outside the White House.
Douglas, a pro-Palestinian student, was arrested last month. Wearing a keffiyeh and carrying a sign calling for the freeing of Mahmoud Khalil, he stated that individuals were being singled out as “test cases to rile up xenophobia and erode long-standing legal protections.”
A 73-year-old New York protester Kathy Valy, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, said, “We are in a great danger,” adding that their stories of how Adolf Hitler rose to power “are what’s happening here.”
“The one thing is that Trump is a lot more stupid than Hitler or than the other fascists,” she said. “He’s being played… and his own team is divided.”
One Daniella Butler, studying for a PhD in immunology at Johns Hopkins University, said she wanted to “call attention specifically to the defunding of science and health work” by the government.
She was carrying a map of Texas which was covered with spots tp show the ongoing measles outbreak there. “When science is ignored, people die,” Butler said.
A small gathering of anti-Trump demonstrators was seen in Texas, the coastal city of Galveston. “This is my fourth protest and typically I would sit back and wait for the next election,” said 63-year-old writer Patsy Oliver. “We cannot do that right now. We’ve lost too much already.”
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, hundreds of people gathered on a beach in San Francisco to spell out the words “IMPEACH + REMOVE,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Other protesters held an upside-down US flag, which is traditionally a symbol of distress.
Organisers aim to use the growing resentment over Trump’s immigration crackdown, drastic cuts to federal agencies, and pressure on universities, news media and law firms, to turn them into a lasting movement.
