On Sunday, after two weeks of a second Trump presidency where ICE officers have been unleashed on poor and working-class communities to carry out mass deportations, tens of thousands protested across the country against Trump’s attacks on immigrants. In downtown Los Angeles, several thousand protesters shut down a section of the 101 Freeway, and in Houston thousands marched to Hermann Park and were met with honks of solidarity from passing cars. Smaller protests took place in cities and towns across the US.
In San Diego, the protest was to be held at 9 am, but hundreds of people were already in attendance by 8:30 am. By 10 am, the crowd had already swelled to at least a thousand people and they began to march through downtown. There were homemade signs saying things like “Don’t bite the hands that feed you,” “Immigrants built this country,” “No one is illegal on stolen land,” and “F*ck ICE.” As the crowd marched, sporadic chants such as “Si se puede” and “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido” echoed against the high rises. The march ended at the county administration building where there was more chanting and some impromptu speeches. Around noon, several hundred people in a town outside of San Diego also gathered to protest the ICE raids and deportations.
There was a total lack of any of the Democratic Party leaders from the City Council or state office. Many people talked about the need to build a real party that is prepared to fight Trump, the billionaires, and their divide-and-rule tactics. They saw the protests as being a good start, but that there needed to be more organization to grow the movement and to fight for demands like immediate citizenship rights for all undocumented immigrants, higher wages and union jobs for all, universal healthcare, and affordable housing.
These protests showed that working-class action is a better defense for undocumented workers than hiding in the shadows. This is only the beginning of the fightback against Trump and the right wing—contact Socialist Alternative today to get involved!