Mass protests across the US on May day, over workers’ and Immigrants’ rights

Protesters rallied nationwide on Thursday, May 1, with a focus on workers’ and immigrants’ rights.

This is in the latest round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration.

May Day, commemorated as international workers’ day, came after two massive days of protests on April 5 and 19, drew millions to the streets across the country.

April 5 protest was reportedly tagged ‘April’s hands off rallies’ while that of April 19 was tagged ‘April’s day of action’.

The May 1 protests are supported by hundreds of organizations and set to take place in nearly 1,000 cities, organizers said.

Turnout will probably be lower than the previous two April protests because 1 May is a weekday, but tens of thousands were expected to turn out.

“This is a war on working people, and we will not stand down,” a website for the national day of action says.

“They’re defunding our schools, privatizing public services, attacking unions, and targeting immigrant families with fear and violence.

“Working people built this nation and we know how to take care of each other.

“We won’t back down, we will never stop fighting for our families and the rights and freedoms that propel opportunity and a better life for all Americans.

“Their time is up.”

A map of May Day protests shows several major metro areas have more than one rally planned.

A coalition of groups in Los Angeles started the day with an early morning rally, then a program and march to show solidarity with the city’s workers and immigrants.

In New York, protests are planned throughout the day.

In New York, Betsy Waters held a sign saying “due process for all”.

The 67-year-old retiree who volunteers full-time said she had come to several marches. “I feel that we have to be out here.

We have to be out here making a stand as much as we can,” Waters said.

“So I am out here making a stand, saying that what is happening in our country is just not right.”

Lydia Howrilka, a 25-year-old librarian from Queens, was holding a “only you can stop fascism” sign.

“I am standing in solidarity with my immigrant brothers and sisters in New York.

“I am standing in defense of democracy,” Howrilka said.

As Trump surpassed 100 days in office, a period filled with slashing and burning of the federal government and democratic norms, a resistance has taken shape, growing in size since February.

People have started to organize in larger numbers to pressure Democrats to stand up more strongly to Trump.

Trump’s approval ratings have fallen from positive to negative, with more people disapproving of him than approving.

The focus on workers and immigrants comes as Trump has fired a host of federal workers and as his administration has ramped up deportations.

The deportations included people who the courts have said were not supposed to be deported.

“Everyone deserves respect and dignity, no matter who they are, where they were born, or what language they speak,” the May Day protest website says.

“Immigrants are workers, and workers are immigrants.

“Our fight for fair wages, safe workplaces, and dignity on the job is the same fight for immigrant justice.”

Organizers behind the May Day protest in Washington DC said they expect to see up to 3,000 people join the rally in the nation’s capital to demand safety on the job, legal protections and an end to unjust deportations.

“We’re seeing people abducted off the streets every day in some of the most violent and cruel ways.

“We’re seeing people like Kilmar Ábrego García, and he’s only one story.

His story is not unusual,” said Cathryn Jackson, public policy director at Casa.

Casa is a group that provides critical services to immigrant and working-class families.

Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is expected to speak at the rally as she continues to fight for her husband.

Her fight according to media reports, is to get her husband released from the  supposedly notorious Cecot maximum-security prison in El Salvador and to be returned to the US.

“Hundreds and hundreds of people are being deported to some of the worst prisons across the country with no due process,” Jackson said.

“This rally today is about solidarity.

“It’s about saying no matter what the Trump administration tries to do, we are determined to fight back.”

Also among the speakers scheduled to address the Washington rally is María del Carmen Castellón, whose husband, Miguel Luna, died in the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore last year.

The story of Luna and the five other construction workers who died during the tragedy is “symbolic”, Jackson said.

The six men were all construction workers originally from Latin American countries.

“This is the story of men working in the middle of the night while all of us were sleeping, getting the roads together, doing the work that many people don’t want to do,” Jackson continued.

“We are literally physically building this country, and then being treated the way we are in return.”

The representative Delia Ramirez, a Democrat representing Illinois, addressed the crowd in Franklin Park as the “proud daughter of Guatemalan immigrants”.

“Today on International Workers’ Day, we are united,” Ramirez said.

“We’re united because we understand that this president wants to silence us.

“He wants to divide us, pit us against each other.

“But we are not going to be silenced.”

The Trump administration knows that “the only thing that will stop fascism is mobilization”, she continued, acknowledging that there will be “really hard days” ahead.

“But as long as you keep organizing, I can amplify that voice and continue to stand up to fascism.”

Jorge Mújica, said on a televised program that “the Trump administration miscalculated completely” by targeting so many constituencies in its first 100 days.

Mújica is the strategic organizer for Arise Chicago and an organizer of the city’s May Day protest,

“They are attacking everybody at the same time, and that [has] enabled us to gather a really broad coalition with labor unions, with federal workers, with students, with teachers at universities, and every other community and put together this event on May Day”, Mújica said.

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