WASHINGTON: Protesters gathered Saturday to support immigrant rights at rallies around the U.S., denouncing President-elect Donald Trump for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and his pledges to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and to crack down on Muslims entering the country.
“We are not going to allow Donald Trump to bury the Statue of Liberty,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told a standing-room-only crowd at a historic African-American church in downtown Washington during one of dozens of rallies around the nation.
In Chicago, more than 1,000 people poured into a teachers union hall to support immigrant rights and implore one another to fight for those rights against what they fear will be a hostile Trump administration.
Ron Taylor, pastor of a Chicago-area Disciples for Christ Church and executive director of the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations, told the audience there, “Regardless of what happens in the coming days, we know that good will conquer evil and we want to say to each and every one of you, you are not alone.”
In Los Angeles, several hundred people rallied at a Mexican-American cultural center and plaza. Some carried signs saying “Here to Stay” and chanted “Si se puede,” Spanish for “Yes, we can.”
The protests mark the latest chapter in a movement that has evolved since 2006, when more than a million people took to the streets to protest a Republican-backed immigration bill that would have made it a crime to be in the country illegally.
The line to enter Metropolitan AME Church in Washington stretched nearly a city block. People attending included immigrants who lack permission to be in the country and their relatives and supporters. Also present were elected officials, clergy and representatives of labor and women’s groups.
“I stand here because I have nothing to apologize for. I am not ashamed of my status because it is a constant reminder to myself that I have something to fight for,” said Max Kim, 19, who was brought to the U.S. from South Korea when he was 6 and lacks legal permission to stay in the country.
The Washington crowd urged Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress not to undo the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, aimed at helping people like Kim who were brought to the country as children.
Michael Takada of the Japanese American Service Committee urged the Chicago audience to “disrupt the deportation machine” that he and others fear will ramp up under the new president.
Dr. Bassam Osman, chair and co-founder of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, elicited loud cheers from the crowd when he called out the president-elect by name in an opening prayer: “Lord, this land is your land, it is not Trump’s land.”
Many participants said they would keep the pressure on Trump and said they planned to participate in next Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington.
MLK march
Saturday’s events in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Jose, Calif., and elsewhere took place as thousands participated in a “We Shall Not Be Moved” march and rally in Washington ahead of Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Bundled against temperatures in the mid-30s, the crowd chanted “No justice, no peace” and “We will not be moved” but also “We will not be Trumped” and “Love Trumps hate.”
“We come not to appeal to Donald Trump, because he’s made it clear what his policies are and what his nominations are. We come to say to the Democrats in the Senate and in the House and to the moderate Republicans to ‘Get some backbone. Get some guts.’ We didn’t send you down here to be weak-kneed,” civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton told marchers after they walked from the Washington Monument to a park near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.