A second significant round of protests against Donald Trump and his hard-line policies drew thousands of demonstrators on Saturday in New York, Washington, and other American cities.
The US president was the target of protesters in New York who held signs with the phrases “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny” outside the city’s major library.
“No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” a reference to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s role in apprehending migrants, was chanted by many in protest of Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants.
In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, 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.
Wearing a keffiyeh and carrying a sign calling for the freeing of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian student protester arrested last month, Douglas said individuals were being singled out as “test cases to rile up xenophobia and erode long-standing legal protections.”
“We are in a great danger,” said 73-year-old New York protester Kathy Valy, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, adding that their stories of how Nazi leader 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.”
‘Science ignored’
Daniella Butler, 26, said she wanted to “call attention specifically to the defunding of science and health work” by the government.
Studying for a PhD in immunology at Johns Hopkins University, she was carrying a map of Texas covered with spots in reference to the ongoing measles outbreak there.
Trump’s health chief Robert F Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, spent decades falsely linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) jab to autism.
“When science is ignored, people die,” Butler said.
In deeply conservative Texas, the coastal city of Galveston saw a small gathering of anti-Trump demonstrators.
“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.”
Several hundred people gathered on a San Francisco beach on the West Coast to spell out the words “IMPEACH + REMOVE,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
An upside-down US flag, which is typically used as a sign of distress, was held by others nearby.
In order to create a long-lasting movement, organizers intend to capitalize on growing discontent about Trump’s immigration crackdown, his severe budget cutbacks to government agencies, and his pressure on academic institutions, the media, and legal companies.
About 400 demonstrations are planned, according to the group 50501, which is the main organizer of Saturday’s events and represents 50 protests throughout 50 states as well as one movement.
It requested that the protests be non-violent and described the demonstrations as “a decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies” on its website.
Although the participation was lower than the nationwide “Hands Off” rallies on April 5, the group nonetheless asked for millions of people to participate on Saturday.