Gearing up for the largest anti-Trump protest yet
The next No Kings Day is March 28, and we’re angrier than ever
It’s been five months since around six million Americans took to the streets for the No Kings 2 protest on October 18, and things have only gotten worse.
Trump’s push for dictator-like powers continues to grow, and now threatens the midterm elections.
Federal agents invaded and occupied Minneapolis for nearly three months – and murdered two U.S. citizens who were observing them -- before a powerful people’s movement chased most of them out. But brutal abductions continue throughout the country.
And just now, Trump has mired the country in a dangerous war in Iran without explaining why – and without a plan. He is truly deranged.
Nearly half of Americans – 49 percent -- now strongly disapprove of the job Trump is doing. (Another five percent somewhat disapprove.)
The next No Kings Day — No Kings 3 – is March 28, only a couple weeks away.
Organizers are hoping to far exceed the turnout at No Kings 2.
“Over 2,200 events are already planned across all 50 states, Washington D.C., and a dozen countries, with the flagship gathering in Minneapolis–St. Paul,” the 50501 Movement states on its website.
“When our families are under attack and costs are pushing people to the brink, silence is not an option,” declares NoKings.org. “We will defend ourselves and our communities against this administration’s unjust and cruel acts of violence. America does not belong to strongmen, greedy billionaires, or those who rule through fear. It belongs to us, the people.”
There’s an event near you
What can you do in the meantime?
“The movement grows one conversation at a time. March 28 will be the largest in history only if each of us commits to trying to get more people to join,” 50501 explains. The group suggests that you text three people today to invite them to join you.
Writer and organizer Micah Sifry offers this advice in his Connector newsletter:
Right now, as you are reading this, make a list of the people who you know who didn’t march in No Kings 1 or 2, and commit to contacting each one before March 28. If you are into writing postcards, take a break from postcarding for candidates and instead write to your own people. You may think that emailing or texting people is enough, but a personal phone call or door-knock will be far more effective.
There are also a series of online training sessions you can sign up for.
Two Victories, Maybe
Kristi Noem is gone! Trump fired her as DHS secretary!
“It feels good to see someone in this administration pay a price for cruelty and incompetence,” writes Joan Walsh in the Nation.
Independent journalist Ken Klipperstein thinks you should take a bow:
The media will credit her fall to some shady no-bid contract she was behind, her use of a private jet, or administration rivals like Stephen Miller and whatever boring DC drama. But the real reason is obvious: public activism.
The revolution is here, as I wrote last month, and the people of Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles deserve credit for forcing Donald Trump to reassess the nature of his immigration war, and creating a massive shift in public opinion.
I’ve got to say that I’m skeptical, both about why she was fired and about how much difference it will make.
Then again, the New York Times sees a significant change in DHS’s strategy already happening:
After months of high-profile, militarized immigration raids in major American cities, the Trump administration has scaled back its deportation strategy, leading to a dip in arrests last month, according to three federal officials and internal government data.
In recent weeks, immigration agents have focused on conducting more targeted enforcement operations, rather than indiscriminate street sweeps, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.
Those arrests have been less visible and chaotic than the campaign that led to violent clashes with protesters — including the fatal shootings of two American citizens in January — and generated intense political blowback against President Trump.
The Habeas Revolution
Mother Jones’s Isabel Dias has a wonderful article on something I’ve been tracking here for months now: “24,403 Lawsuits and Counting: How Habeas Corpus Became the Front Line of Immigration Defense.”
This is all happening because of Trump’s cruelty. His administration abandoned decades of humane precedent and stopped allowing detained immigrants to have bond hearings, which could lead to their release. So now, “Instead of negotiating immigration law with government attorneys in the immigration courts overseen by the Department of Justice,” Dias writes, immigration lawyers “are pleading for federal judges to step in and uphold the basic constitutional rights of thousands of immigrants held in government custody.”
The result has been an amazing rebellion by federal district court judges in defense of the Constitution. “As the number of habeas corpus petitions challenging mandatory detention soared, so did the wins for detained immigrants,” Dias writes. Since September, “federal judge after federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s reading of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The repudiation has been nearly unanimous. As many as 400 judges — including Trump appointees — in some 4,400 cases have arrived at that consensus, according to a Reuters review of court records.”
Trump Also Losing Lawsuits Over His Defunding Campaign
The New York Times identified 198 lawsuits in the past year “that challenge how Mr. Trump has leveraged federal funding to carry out his agenda without the consent of Congress.”
He keeps losing them:
When plaintiffs have sought immediate relief, district court judges have temporarily blocked the administration’s actions 79 percent of the time, signaling plaintiffs’ likely success on the merits. In the 26 instances where district judges have issued partial or final rulings, the administration lost 23.
That’s the good news. The bad new is that the article is mostly about how Trump “has proceeded undeterred by losses in court.”
That reflects “a new kind of reality in Washington, one where the president wields far more control over spending, and where his opponents aren’t entitled to the services of their federal government.”
This Week in the Courts
The 350,000 Haitians who arrived in the U.S. legally under Temporary Protected Status can breathe easier. A federal appeals court this week agreed with a district judge’s ruling that saved them from mass deportation — at least for now. The 2-1 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., concluded that “The government’s failure to meet its burden of demonstrating irreparable harm alone justifies denying emergency relief that would upend the status quo and increase uncertainty while this appeal proceeds.”
The residents of a low-income housing complex across the street from a frequently protested Portland ICE facility can also breathe easier. A federal judge ordered DHS agents to stop deploying tear gas and other chemical munitions against protesters that could seep into the complex, unless they face an “imminent threat to life”. Judge Amy M. Baggio agreed with residents that ICE’s use of chemical munitions had been “so excessive — so enveloping” that it violated their rights.
Did federal agents in Minnesota detain people solely based on their race? They sure did, a federal judge in Minnesota has ruled. In fact, they did so routinely. Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, concluded that “Defendants have adopted a policy authorizing federal immigration officers to conduct investigatory stops based on ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion that the individuals were violating immigration laws. The evidence from individual encounters is compelling and troubling.”
It’s never a good sign for the Trump administration when a ruling starts with a disquisition praising the Framers for “throwing off the fetters of despotism.” And indeed, a chief federal judge in Pennsylvania soundly rejected Attorney General Pam Bondi’s attempt to unilaterally install three people – unconfirmed by the Senate – to replace Alina Habba, who was previously disqualified as U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Judge Matthew W. Brann wrote: “One year into this administration, it is plain that President Trump and his top aides have chafed at the limits on their power set forth by law and the Constitution. To avoid these roadblocks, this administration frequently purports to have discovered enormous grants of executive power hidden in the vagaries and silences of the code.”
The Trump administration tried to effectively eliminate meaningful review of immigration judge decisions, but a federal judge has blocked the policy from taking effect. Judge Randy Moss found that the Department of Justice had failed to follow proper procedure.
A federal judge ruled that Kari Lake had illegally served as acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media. Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s summary judgement makes the actions taken by Lake since March 2025 legally void. That includes her attempt to fire hundreds of Voice of America employees.
A federal judge has been asked to block Trump from closing and razing the Kennedy Center. “This is a case about the ongoing desecration and impending destruction of a cherished national monument,” the lawsuit says.
In Minnesota
A Brandi Carlile concert in Minneapolis raised over $600,000 for families affected by ICE.
The Minnesota Reformer published a profile of Jason Chavez, the Minneapolis council member who joined the front lines of the resistance to ICE:
For Chavez, the battle is personal: Two of his uncles were deported during Operation Metro Surge — one in December, another in January.
One, who had a work visa and co-owns a Richfield pizza shop, was detained by ICE while making a delivery, Chavez said.
“You have to have conversations with your loved ones, saying that we just live in a government system that dehumanizes people,” Chavez said. “But if I’m able to ever change that, one way or another, I’m going to — and I’m going to make sure that the voices of our community are not left off the table.”
A Bluesky user named Wendy posts that “I’ve been photographing anti-ICE and related yard/window/tree/street signs around Minneapolis. The variety of commercial and especially handmade signs is amazing, as is the urge for people to let their neighbors know they care and are furious in ways big and small.” Check them out.
Warehouses for People
Maybe you or a friend need a wonderful six-minute primer on DHS’s plans to acquire massive warehouses and turn them into detention centers for immigrants. Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University professor, has you covered.
Concerned residents of Social Circle, Georgia, rallied against the proposed ICE facility in their small town. Protesters in Roxbury, New Jersey, took to the street to express outrage about a planned facility in their town.
Schuyler Mitchell of Mother Jones hung out with Roxbury protesters. She spoke to Chris Lenox, who lives across the street from the warehouse with his wife and two kids.
“To have it in our backyard, it’s horrible,” Lenox told her. “I was thinking about putting my house up for sale. How am I going to sell my house with this crap in my backyard?”
The Washington Post reports that DHS is feeding talking points to Republicans as opposition to ICE warehouses swell. Like: “If there’s a new facility going in here, Merrimack residents should be celebrating, not protesting.”
The whole enterprise is inevitably going to be rife with corruption and failure. Another hint of that: The Washington Post reports that DHS “is turning to a crop of relatively untested businesses to rapidly build and operate the facilities.” And the New York Times examines the detailed plans for the giant Social Circle facility and finds that “the initial designs raise health, safety and security concerns.”
Take It Home, Rebecca Solnit
New York Times journalist David Marchese interviewed writer and activist Rebecca Solnit, who has a new book out, “The Beginning Comes After the End; Notes on a World of Change”, which Kirkus describes as “A convincing vision of a brighter future.”
Here’s the key excerpt, where Marchese asks a question that is either profoundly stupid or a softball, I’m not really sure which:
Marchese: I would like to hear your perspective on whether any of the strategies or tactics against Trump and Trumpism have maybe been counterproductive? Because I wonder if, you know, calling him and the movement “fascist, sexist, racist,” has, sort of, alienated people who, might otherwise be brought into the progressive fold. So do you think there have been any sort of missteps over the last 10 years?
Solnit: That’s the least of our problems. They are racist. They are authoritarian, they are misogynist. They are homophobic. And tiptoeing around it protects them and not the targets of the hatred and discrimination. I just get so tired of the idea that progressives have gone too far in asserting that, like, every human being deserves human rights, when people are being shot in the streets of Minneapolis. We are facing such horrific brutality that politeness is not really the problem to start with. I think we got into this situation, in part, by a lot of people in the mainstream thinking it was more important to be nice and polite than call things by their true names. This is really extreme stuff. If we need to use extreme language to describe it, let’s be truthful, let’s be accurate and let’s be bold. And there’s a wonderful historian, scholar of nonviolence named George Lakey, who says polarization is good. That’s when you have clarity. Sometimes people have to pick sides. You do not get authoritarians to behave better by being meek and gentle and polite. You get it by being strong. You got me all worked up. I feel like it probably didn’t take that much.