Thousands in Wisconsin protest immigrant treatment, Trump agenda in No Kings protests

Yahoo

6 days ago

Wisconsinites in more than 50 towns and cities took to the streets on Saturday, June 14, as part of what organizers say was the largest nationwide protest yet against President Donald Trump's second-term agenda.
In downtown Milwaukee, organizers estimated the crowd reached almost 10,000 people, according to Alan Chavoya, a protester with the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. Protestors chanted and sang in Cathedral Square Park, before marching a mile loop around part of downtown. The rally was energetic, but peaceful.
"This is what democracy looks like," Chavoya said.
More than 100 groups worked together to organize No Kings protests across the country, with actions taking place in more than 1,500 cities, according to its website. Spearheading the effort was the national organizing group, 50501 — short for "50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement."
The protests take their name from the idea that in the United States, we don't have kings — a reference to Trump's own language about himself and his perception of virtually unchecked power.
The Saturday's protests coincided with Trump's military parade — estimated to cost upwards of $30 million — to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army and his own birthday.
They also took place as word spread of the assassination Saturday morning of a Minnesota state representative and her husband, along with the shootings of a Minnesota state senator and his wife, in what has been described as a politically motivated attack.
Many of the protestors in Cathedral Square Park held up signs supporting immigrants, and decrying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's recent nationwide crackdown.
Lindsey Amador, 24, and her niece, Jacqueline Garcia-Amador, 19, traveled from Lake Geneva to specifically protest ICE, they said. Both grew up with undocumented family members and have been protesting for immigrants' rights for years.
"It's really sad seeing everything that's happened recently," Garcia-Amador said. "Most of the people coming here just want a better life. All we want is justice, dignity and no more separation of families."
Julia Miranda Ramirez, 56, said she immigrated to Milwaukee from Mexico nearly two decades ago and eventually attained her green-card status. Waving a Mexican flag at the protest, Miranda Ramirez said she wanted to represent and support her local Mexican American community.
"We deserve respect, dignity and inclusion," she said. "It's common sense."
Janey Christoffersen, 49, of West Allis, said she was attending a protest for the first time, motivated by local reports of federal arrests of immigrants.
"It was a no-brainer to be here," Christoffersen said, speaking through tears. "I want to get out of my comfort zone to show people that we love and care about them, that the whole country is not angry."
Along with immigrants' rights, the Cathedral Square Park crowd singled out issues like veterans' benefits, abortion access, union jobs and public education funding — all of which have been targets of the Trump administration or the broader Republican agenda.
Laurie Peifer, a retired member of the Milwaukee Fire Department, said she was protesting to protect women's health care. She dressed in a red robe and white bonnet, inspired by Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
"I'm no longer able to have children, and I never wanted to anyway, but I had the right to choose my entire reproductive life," Peifer said. "That being taken away from women today has me disturbed."
New Berlin resident Dick Clarey, 78, said he came out with his wife to protest the Trump administration's shrinking of the Department of Veteran's Affairs. A Vietnam War veteran, Clarey said he had little use for the military parade in Washington, D.C.
"We really don't need to show off our power like that," Clarey said.
Ellen Eckman, 78, and her husband, Fred, 81, have attended multiple protests against the Trump administration in recent months. The Shorewood residents said they came out Saturday to rally for free speech rights after seeing National Guard troops dispatched to protests in Los Angeles, even though California officials neither wanted them nor thought they were at all needed.
"I'm hoping that the attention generated all over the country today will wake up the Republicans to the fact that this is not what we want," Ellen Eckman said.
In addition to downtown Milwaukee, crowds turned out at other area protests in Shorewood, Greenfield, Brookfield and Waukesha.
Dawn Levine, an organizer with Waukesha Resist, said for her, protest was about preserving freedom for future generations.
'I have two daughters. I want them to have the future that I had growing up," she said. 'We had freedom, we had rights, and (Trump) is trying to take that away from us and make us minions, and I'm not going to stand for that.'
New Berlin resident Bill Loos, 71, said he came to the protest with his wife because he wants to support people impacted by Trump's policies. He questioned how people who knew women, people of color and people in the LGBTQ+ community could support someone who 'wants to hurt them with his policies and programs.'
Waukesha resident Vicki Magisano said she attended because she believes in the importance of Medicare and Social Security.
'We haven't had a king since we kicked them out in 1776. We need to not have another one,' she said. 'This country is built on immigrants, hard work and democracy."
Waukesha resident Nancy Bopre said she wants to tell her grandchildren that she did not stay silent about injustice. Bopre said that she believes in protecting the U.S. Constitution and the right to Medicaid.
'I have a disabled son,' she said. 'He's been accepted to longer-term Medicaid as of two-and-a-half years ago.'
In Shorewood, several hundred people showed up to rally Saturday afternoon, exceeding organizers' original registration numbers. Organizer Caryn Melton, a Shorewood resident for 32 years, said Saturday was her first protest.
'I'm inspired to see so many people from so many walks of life have shown up here to express their concern for our country and to protest and exercise our rights as Americans," she said.
Milwaukee resident, Kelli Hook, 47, opted to attend Shorewood's No Kings protest instead of the larger one in Cathedral Square Park. Hook said she believes having boots on the ground is important, especially in a suburb like Shorewood, where activists may have less of the presence.
'It's our responsibility to stand up, show our voice, not wait until the ballot box, spend every day we can fighting for justice for every single person on the planet, whether they're trans, LGBT, immigrants, refugees and other disfranchised people," she said.
Outside of southeast Wisconsin, protests were held all around Wisconsin.
Thousands marched up Madison's State Street, and organizers estimated as many as 17,000 people gathered at the Wisconsin State Capitol, which featured remarks from U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, Democrat from Georgia, and a phone message U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont.
Vietnam War veteran Will Gilmore, 78, traveled from his home in Columbus, Wisconsin, to attend the Madison protest. Gilmore said he felt it was important for him to attend because he took an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution, which he believes the Trump administration is failing to follow.
'We're at a cusp right now," Gilmore said. "It's up to us to decide if we want not to just go back to where we were, but to try to revamp government so that it better addresses the needs of the people."
Ahead of the march to the state Capitol, Women's March held a 'Kick Out the Clowns' rally on Library Mall, complete with clowns and musical performances. The women's rights group coordinated the event with No Kings organizers as part of efforts to draw as many protesters to Madison as possible, executive director Rachel O'Leary Carmona told the Journal Sentinel.
O'Leary Carmona emphasized the importance of community and nonviolent action, especially given the Minnesota lawmaker shootings Saturday.
'I think in this moment, when fear has been rising and polarization has been rising, there is an impulse to start to not trust each other and to fracture at the seams," O'Leary Carmona said. "I think that our actions are a tactical intervention against that because it's an effort to blunt the impact of political violence."
Just as in the Milwaukee area, smaller communities around Madison held No Kings rallies of their own. About 200 gathered in Stoughton, for example, and 150 attended in McFarland, local police department officials said. An estimated 600 protested in Green Bay.
Nationally, protests took place from one coast to the other, and even at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's home in Palm Beach, Florida. The themes were consistent: be more accepting of immigrants and refugees, stop cutting programs that help the poor and those on the fringes, have more respect for veterans, and stop taking actions that denigrate people of color. Many signs and speakers at rallies across the country hit on anti-authoritarian themes.
In New York, the actor Mark Ruffalo, a native of Kenosha, Wisconsin, said: "Sadly today, Donald Trump and the administration of billionaires, crackpots and ICE brigades, have taken over. We have a king and his court and his beige henchmen, and they're trampling on our rights and our laws and our freedoms."
This story was updated to add a video.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dozens of Wisconsin cities holding 'No Kings' protests against Trump