Upcoming protests target ICE and billionaires
The May Day action will be a major tactical escalation for the resistance
For a lot of the participants in No Kings Day 3, picking the right protest sign was a real dilemma: With so many horrors to be outraged about, how do you pick just one?
Two upcoming events are aimed at more specific targets.
This Saturday, April 25, will be a day of action against ICE.
And on May Day – next Friday – the spotlight will be on economic issues. May Day will also represent a major tactical escalation for the resistance: Its goal is to disrupt “business as usual” through a call for “No School. No Work. No Shopping.”
On April 25, ‘Communities Not Cages’
ICE detention centers are the focus of Saturday’s “National Day of Action.” Many of the organizers are operating under the banner of the Disappeared In America campaign.
“Cruelty against immigrants has been a cornerstone of Trump’s authoritarian agenda,” Indivisible wrote in an email to members. “Over the past year, we’ve seen this cruelty up close as the regime’s secret police raids our neighborhoods, separates families, and rips apart communities. But behind the scenes, the Department of Homeland Security has also been quietly working to scale up their ability to detain and disappear people in massive numbers.”
Sporadic but alarming reports from inside existing detention centers have revealed inhumane treatment. And at least 17 people have died in ICE custody since January.
Now, according to an ICE memo, the agency intends to spend $38.3 billion to build 24 new detention facilities, including eight large-scale detention centers that could hold 7,000 to 10,000 detainees at a time. By comparison, there were approximately 60,000 immigrants in ICE detention last month.
Grassroots movements opposed to the conversion of warehouses in their areas have had some startling successes in cancelling sales and suing to stop work. The Associated Press reported last week that fierce local opposition was a factor in Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s decision to review his predecessor’s warehousing plan.
The message to Mullin and local governments on Saturday will be clear. Here is Indivisible’s summary of the demands:
Cancel the warehouse detention plan and stop every conversion immediately.
Reject all public funding, permits, and local resources that enable ICE to expand detention.
Require full transparency and real community consent before any federal detention action moves forward. Decisions about detention cannot be made behind closed doors.
You can find the closest event to you here. Here’s a map. The hashtag is #CommunitiesNotCages. This toolkit for organizers is full of useful information.
‘This May Day, It’s Workers Over Billionaires’
The organizers of Mayday Strong say that on May 1 this year “workers, students, and families” will “rally, march, and take action across the country to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires, with many refusing business as usual through No School. No Work. No Shopping.”
It’s a largely economic message. Labor unions are heavily involved.
But perhaps most importantly, it’s on a weekday. And the goal is not just to protest, but to disrupt. It’s a big step forward – if it works.
“May Day is a structure test for the strength of the movement,” Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, told podcaster Katie Phang earlier this month. “It is more than just showing up on a Saturday. It is attempting to gauge our economic power on a single day.”
He continued: “It is a tactical escalation. But I think if we’re serious about what this regime is trying to do, we need to develop these tactics.”
Here, via the NEA, are the demands:
Stop the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration.
Protect and defend Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on.
Fully fund public schools, healthcare, and housing for all.
Stop the attacks on our communities, including policies targeting immigrants, people of color, Native people, people with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+.
Organizers say they were inspired by the one-day economic blackout in Minneapolis-St. Paul in January protesting the invasion of their state by masked and thuggish federal agents. Hundreds of businesses closed. Some 50,000 protesters marched through downtown Minneapolis.
Union officials like Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, are hoping that by stressing economic issues and affordability, the event will attract a more politically diverse crowd. This is what she had to say during an organizing call after No Kings 3.
We’ve been told this story for a long time, that our country is so divided. But when I look at the numbers, I’m looking at the 87% of Americans who say we’re in a cost-of-living crisis. I look at the 90% who are stressed out about the price of groceries. And so whether people have a D or an R or an I or whatever next to their name, rent is still too high. Your paycheck still doesn’t stretch to the end of the month, and you’re still worried that the boss or the people running this country don’t give a damn about your family.
So that is our common ground.
Organizers say there will be hundreds of rallies, marches, teach-ins, and labor actions across the country. Find one near you here. And here’s a map.
So Many Ways to Resist
404 Media reports that shareholders in Thomson Reuters last week “demanded the company’s board launch an investigation into whether its products have contributed to human rights violations, specifically with regards to Thomson Reuters’ ongoing sale of peoples’ personal data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” The company sells ICE access to its investigative tool Clear, which 404 Media says is integrated with ICE tools, including one that ICE uses to find neighborhoods to target.
The Providence Journal reports that “Anti-ICE activists from throughout the Northeast plan to descend upon Citizens Bank’s headquarters during the company’s annual shareholder meeting on April 23 in Providence. Protesters say they want the bank to cut ties with CoreCivic and the GEO Group, two private prison companies that operate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.”
Democracy Now reports that “dozens of military veterans and their family members were arrested Monday as they nonviolently occupied the Cannon House Office Building to protest the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, while demanding a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson. At least 62 people were arrested, including elderly and disabled activists.”
The Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania reports that “About 40 protesters marched to the State College Municipal Building on Monday evening, demanding Borough Council pass a binding ordinance prohibiting collaboration with ICE.”
Maryland Matters reports that hundreds of protesters rallied outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore even as the judge inside blocked further construction on a planned Washington County immigration detention center.
And you might just see me here! Public Citizen and Common Cause are among the groups holding a protest tomorrow – Thursday, April 23, from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm ET – outside the building formerly known as the U.S. Institute of Peace. Inside, David Ellison – who is awaiting regulatory approval of Paramount’s bid to purchase Warner Bros. – will be holding a corrupt gala dinner to “honor” Trump.
House Passes Good Immigration Bill
The first pro-immigrant bill to pass Congress this legislative session would provide a three-year period of protection and work authorization for 350,000 Haitian immigrants who otherwise would risk deportation on account of the Trump administration’s temporarily blocked termination of their Temporary Protected Status.
The bill highlights Republican division over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The vote was 224-204, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in voting yes.
Trump has vowed to veto the bill if it makes it past the Senate.
This Week in the Courts
A federal judge in Oregon struck down Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to impose far-reaching restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai’s ruling was epic. “Unserious leaders are unsafe,” he wrote. “This case highlights a leader’s unserious regard for the rule of law. This case demonstrates how disregard for the rule of law does not merely result in an abstract infraction. Rather, and tragically, this case is one of a long list of examples of how a leader’s wanton disregard for the rule of law causes very real harm to very real people.”
In another searing opinion, a federal judge in New York warned of potential sanctions against DHS for issuing arrest warrants against two immigrants after they were arrested. “Police and law enforcement cannot operate as roving bands, detaining individuals, figuring out the reasons later, and papering over their failures afterwards,” Judge Sanket Bulsara wrote. “This practice of after-the-fact arrest warrants can be called many things – illegal, improper, and unconstitutional, among them. But whatever label one wishes to apply, the practice is fundamentally at odds with and offensive to lawful, constitutional behavior in this country.”
I noted above that a federal judge in Maryland blocked further construction on a planned immigration detention center there. “This case provides a crystal-clear example of a federal agency failing to comply with the basic requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act,” Judge Brendan Hurson wrote. “Had DHS done so, it likely would have found that the rapid transformation of a cargo-processing facility with four toilets and two water fountains into a temporary residence and workplace for hundreds, if not thousands, would jeopardize the health and safety of the surrounding ecosystem in myriad ways, most notably through the likely over-taxing of the sewer system.”
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., clarified that his previous order to stop construction of Trump’s White House ballroom (the above-ground part) still holds, even though construction on the underground portion, which has national security implications, may continue. Judge Richard Leon blasted the government for its attempt “to tum this exception on its head and unreasonably insist that the entire ballroom project may proceed.”
A federal judge in Rhode Island dismissed the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to force Rhode Island to provide unfettered access to its voter registration rolls – the fifth straight loss in such cases for DOJ. Judge Mary S. McElroy wrote that voting laws do not allow the government “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here.”
A federal judge in Illinois ruled that the Trump administration coerced Facebook and Apple to remove ICE-tracking apps in violation of the First Amendment. Judge Jorge Alonso noted that then-Attorney General Pam Bondi “made public statements taking credit” for the move.
End Notes
A new investigation from ProPublica and Frontline: “A Protester Threw a Snowball. Federal Agents Responded With Tear Gas and Pepper Balls.”
Justin Florence for Protect Democracy, on how Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party in Hungary built infrastructure and enlisted 50,000 people as election monitors to thwart Viktor Orban’s attempt to steal the vote.
From newsletter author G. Elliott Morris: “New poll: 55% support impeaching Trump”.
From AL.com: An Alabama woman is acquitted after her arrest for wearing an inflatable penis costume to a “No Kings” protest.