By Doyinsola Oladipo, Karen Freifeld and Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Lawyers, teachers and politicians were among thousands of demonstrators across the U.S. on Thursday protesting policies on immigration, the targeting of lawyers and judges and the role of wealthy decision-makers under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, whose husband Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a U.S. resident the administration sent by mistake to a prison in El Salvador, spoke at a Washington rally that was among planned protests across the U.S. organized by lawyers’ groups and by a coalition of more than 200 labor unions and immigrant rights advocates.
“He was illegally detained, abducted and disappeared by the Trump administration, though they admitted it was an error,” Vasquez Sura said, adding her husband has endured “50 days of suffering.”
“For everyone watching, keep fighting,” she said. The crowd responded with chants of: “Bring Kilmar home.”
Organizers have accused the Trump administration of prioritizing profits for billionaires and called on it to invest in working families by fully funding healthcare, housing and public schools.
“It’s a clear split screen between the priorities of the Trump administration and what regular people want and need,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group and a co-organizer of the Washington rally.
Organizers expected hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country, hoping for the biggest May Day Protests in U.S. history. Previous protests have garnered thousands of attendees since Trump returned to office.
Federal workers have been fired as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser heading a new Department of Government Efficiency, have moved to slash government departments and fire workers.
U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar told a crowd in Washington the administration’s actions were “eliminating oversight so corporations can exploit workers without consequences.”
Days after Trump celebrated his first 100 days in office with a campaign-style event in Michigan, the rallies came as Democrats sought a unified response and a galvanizing leader.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont addressed a rally in Philadelphia.
In New York, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned protesters that Trump and the Republican majority in the U.S. Congress “are going after Medicaid next.”
Cortez, who has been touring the country holding rallies with Sanders, said she had just learned that Republicans “have stopped and suspended next week’s Medicaid cuts because they are getting too scared … But our fight is not over because they have only suspended” the cuts to Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans.
She said there were 6,000 protesters in New York City and tens of thousands more demonstrating in Philadelphia, Idaho, Los Angeles, Denver, and Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.
Also in New York, hundreds of lawyers attended a separate “National Law Day of Action” event near Manhattan’s imposing federal and state courthouses. Law Day is marked annually on May 1.
The lawyers chanted, “Respect our judges, give support. Stand behind them, and the court.”
Some prominent law firms have pledged millions in free legal work and made other concessions to Trump in efforts to get him to rescind punitive measures against them. Others have filed lawsuits challenging his orders and have been supported by law professors, advocacy groups, state attorneys general, former top legal executives at large companies and others.
Federal judges have claimed the Trump administration has failed to comply with court orders regarding foreign aid, federal spending and the firing of government workers. The administration disputes it has defied judges.
Among the speakers in Manhattan was Stuart Gerson, who served President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, as an assistant attorney general and also served President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, as acting attorney general.
“This is about country, not about party,” Gerson told the crowd, recalling what Bush told him when Clinton asked him to serve in his cabinet. “You don’t pledge fealty to an individual, you pledge fealty to the Constitution.”
Marc Walkow, 56, a lawyer from Manhattan, held a sign at the rally that said, “Protect the rule of law.”
“Sadly, somehow the rule of law has become a progressive ideal, not a universal ideal,” Walkow said.
(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo and Karen Freifeld in New York and Rick McKay in Atlanta; editing by Donna Bryson and David Gregorio)
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