“Taking Our Power Back”: Immigrants & Workers Plan for May Day Protests as Trump Marks 100 Days

AMY GOODMAN: Today marks 100 days since President Trump returned to the White House. Multiple polls show his approval rating after 100 days is lower than any president in 80 years.

Ahead of his hundredth day, Trump signed three new executive orders, including one targeting sanctuary cities. The order instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue, quote, “all necessary legal remedies and enforcement measures,” unquote, against state and local jurisdictions who refuse to assist with Trump’s mass deportation plans. A second order further militarizes local police departments and seeks to punish local officials who, quote, “unlawfully prohibit law enforcement officers from carrying out duties,” unquote. It also provides legal resources to officers accused of abuses. A third executive order requires professional truck drivers to be proficient in English.

This comes as outrage grows over Trump’s sweeping anti-immigrant crackdown. On Friday, the Trump administration deported to Honduras three U.S. citizen children, including a 4-year-old boy who’s actively receiving treatment for a rare form of stage 4 cancer. The boy was removed with his 7-year-old sister, who’s also a U.S. citizen, and their mother. In a separate case, the U.S. removed a 2-year-old U.S. citizen along with her mother.

The Trump administration also continues to refuse court orders to bring home Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was mistakenly flown to El Salvador, by the Department of Justice’s own admission, on March 15th.

Over the weekend, ICE conducted a number of high-profile immigration raids. In Florida, ICE worked with local officials to detain nearly 800 people. Meanwhile, in Colorado Springs, ICE agents raided a nightclub and made over a hundred arrests.

Immigrant rights groups across the country are planning major May Day protests for Thursday.

We begin today’s show with two guests helping to plan the May Day protests. Here in New York, Nisha Tabassum, the lead organizer for worker issues at Make the Road New York, an immigrant rights and advocacy group. And in Chicago, we’re joined by Jorge Mújica, the strategic organizer for Arise Chicago, which advocates for immigrant workers’ rights, one of the lead organizers of the May Day protest in Chicago.

Jorge, before we talk about those major protests on Thursday, can you go to these executive orders and respond to what President Trump did, very significantly, on this eve of the 100th day he’s back in office, and interestingly, as his polls across the board are tanking, including how he’s dealing with immigrants?

JORGE MÚJICA: Good morning, Amy. Thank you for having us here.

These are smokescreens. President Trump has signed 157, I think, executive orders related to immigration. It is not possible to even comply, start complying with the legal ones — forget about challenging the illegal ones. It’s just a continuous circus. He will be issuing orders and more orders, even if they don’t make any kind of sense. The federal government cannot mandate a local police department to do anything or to not do anything. The city of Chicago is a municipality completely free to decide what exactly their police does. So I don’t think we have to pay a whole lot more attention to this kind of crazy executive orders.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jorge, could you talk about the protests that are planned not only for May Day, but for the following days? Chicago, back in 2006, you were part of the organizers of the first immigrant rights protest, and it was really Chicago that set the whole nation off on a series of protests that stunned the country back then.

JORGE MÚJICA: That’s right. And I think we took the lead again. Back in January, we started meeting, because there were several calls by several people, mostly social media personalities, saying that we should have a day without immigrants here and there. And we decided that we should concentrate in one particular day, one particular date, to really be able to get everybody together.

The Trump administration miscalculated completely. Instead of attacking only one community as they did in 2006, they are attacking everybody at the same time, and that enabled us to gather a really broad coalition with labor unions, with federal workers, with students, with teachers at universities, and every other community and put together this event on May Day.

May Day was born in Chicago. And we’ve recovered May Day for history, because it had been completely forgotten. Everybody thought it was a foreign celebration. But it’s May Day Chicago. This is the origin of May Day.

So, we decided to march on this day and to have several actions on the following days. On Friday, May 2nd, students are going to walk out their colleges and universities and high schools. And we are promoting a no margaritas and no guacamole weekend. You know, we cannot have a society celebrating a Cinco de Mayo without Mexicans. If they want their Cinco de Mayo, they have to want Mexicans in this town and this city. So we are putting together this series of events over the weekend, starting on May Day, Thursday.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nisha Tabassum, could you talk about what is being planned for New York City?

NISHA TABASSUM: Yeah. Thank you so much, Jorge.

You know, we’re living in a moment where we’re seeing unprecedented attacks on unions and workers in this country. We’re seeing corporate takeovers of our federal government. We’re seeing companies and billionaires exploiting workers for their own gain.

And so, right now we are joining — Make the Road is joining over 50 unions and advocacy groups and immigrants’ rights groups to come together on May 1st at 5 p.m. at Foley Square to demand that we need to stand back and fight. We need to fight this corporate takeover. We are the many; they are the few. It’s time to stand back and fight. So we’re really encouraging everyone to come join us, come march with us. As you’ve already stated, you know, labor — May Day is rooted in resistance. And this is a moment that we all need to come together to fight against these federal cuts, to fight against the attacks on all different kinds of workers, especially immigrant workers.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jorge, I wanted to go back to you for a second. You’ve also talked about — Arise Chicago is also targeting certain corporations for consumer boycotts. Could you talk about that, as well?

JORGE MÚJICA: That’s correct. We, the Consejo de Resistencia en Defensa del Inmigrante — that’s the right denomination — we are targeting three major stores. We are targeting Walmart. We are targeting Target and McDonald’s, mostly because of their complying with Donald Trump orders to do away with minority hiring and, you know, affirmative actions, and also two particular brands, very popular in the Mexican community and the Latino community, and those are Goya products and Miller beer, because they are sponsors of the Republican Party, because they donated money to Donald Trump. So, we decided to go ahead and stop buying these products. And we will be promoting that boycott over the May Day weekend, too.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Georgia Flowers Lee, National Education Association vice president for United Teachers Los Angeles, has been an educator for over 20 years. As we mark this hundredth day of President Trump’s term, he has signed I don’t know how many executive orders, both around immigration, most recently on the eve of this day, yesterday, and also around DEI, around diversity, equity and inclusion. If you can talk about why you’re going to be out in the streets on Thursday and what your gravest concerns are right now? Interestingly, overall, with these polls tanking, you may be well representing the majority of people in this country, Georgia.

GEORGIA FLOWERS LEE: Good morning, Amy. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, we’re going to be out in the streets on May Day along with a broad coalition of other labor unions, of advocacy groups, of immigrant rights groups, because the attacks that are coming are targeting our children, targeting our immigrant families. Really, it seems as if it’s a move to destroy the foundation on which our democracy is built. All the cuts that are coming out of the Department of Education, what that is going to do to our students, particularly our students who are most marginalized, our students with exceptional needs, our students who begin life with challenges, what happens to those students? And we are keeping our eye on the move to privatize our public education, which we all acknowledge is the foundation of democracy. It’s what gives us an opportunity. Without public education, kids who start off behind the ball are simply not going to have a chance.

So we feel it is our absolute moral obligation to stand up to fight for students and for families, particularly our immigrant families and our students who are terrified. We had, just a couple weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security try to invade two of our elementary schools and take students out. Luckily, the staff at that school — at those schools were able to defend and prevent it from happening. But imagine how terrifying that is for our students and for the families who entrust their students, who entrust their children to our care. So we see this as a moral imperative for us to stand up, to stand in coalition with others, and to push back against what is happening.

And so, we’ll be out there on May Day, but we will also be out there on May 17th. We are mobilizing with other teachers’ unions across the metropolitan L.A. area to show up. And we are showing up at SpaceX, and we are letting the folks — the folks who are controlling the levers of power know that we are taking our power back. We are not ceding anything. And we think it is absolutely our moral obligation to do so.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Georgia Flowers Lee, could you talk about the response of the public school districts in California to the recent announcement of the Department of Education that all school districts have to certify that they’re not involved with any kind of, what the government calls, discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or they’ll face cutoffs of Title I money?

GEORGIA FLOWERS LEE: Across the board, we are saying no. The California Department of Education has said no. Our state affiliate, the California Teachers Association, has said no. Diversity is our strength. We want inclusion. Inclusion means we all get an opportunity, we all get to be involved, we all get to participate. And equity simply means, you know, that we are trying to level the playing field. So we are absolutely saying no to it. And my district, the L.A. Unified School District, I believe, has already responded and said this is not — this is not something that we are going to comply with. And so, across the board, we are saying this is not acceptable to us, and we are not complying with it, because we see it for what it is.

AMY GOODMAN: Nisha, I wanted to go to an issue here in New York. Last week, a judge temporarily halted efforts by Mayor Eric Adams to reopen an ICE office inside the Rikers Island jail complex. Adams first signaled the move after he met with Trump’s so-called border czar Tom Homan in February. At the time, the New York Civil Liberties Union slammed Adams’ administration for selling out New Yorkers for Trump’s dangerous deportation regime. The group said in a statement, quote, “ICE’s presence on Rikers serves no legitimate purpose, and opens the door to unlawful collusion between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials in violation of our city’s well-established sanctuary protections. … New Yorkers see this for what it is: Mayor Adams skirting the City Council, cozying up to Trump, and putting immigrant New Yorkers in harm’s way,” the group said. And we all know about the Trump administration dropping the charges against Mayor Eric Adams, which many people called a quid pro quo for him then doing their bidding around immigration. If you can respond to what Eric Adams is pushing for, what the judge has stopped?

NISHA TABASSUM: Yeah. Thank you for that question.

You know, luckily, we live in a city that has a really strong City Council, that has passed really strong immigrant protections in New York City. The City Council has sued to stop the Adams administration executive order from allowing ICE on Rikers, and there’s a temporary restraining order. And I think this shows us that, like, we really need our state leadership to take strong action to protect immigrant communities and workers and families in New York.

You know, Make the Road New York, along with labor unions and other immigrant groups, are pushing for New York for All, which is a law that would prevent cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. No one should have their rights be different based on where they live, right? The goal of New York for All is to standardize these strong immigrant protections across the state, not just in New York City. We have county executives in Nassau, Long Island, you know, collaborating with the federal government willingly to have detectives cooperating with ICE. And this would prevent that, right? So, this is the time where we actually really need our state leaders to step up and incorporate protections and standardize protections across the board, not just in New York City. Your rights should not be different based on where you live.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jorge Mújica, I’m wondering if you could talk about where people are gathering in Chicago on May Day and what the plans are for the protests that day.

JORGE MÚJICA: Yeah, we are gathering at 11 a.m. at Union Park, the corner of Lake and Ashland Avenues, and we’re going to be marching across downtown all the way pretty much to Lake Michigan. We’re going to cross the whole downtown. We will be arriving at Grant Park around maybe 2 to 2:30 p.m., and we will have a program continues until 4 p.m. or so.

We have over 180 labor unions and community organizations, and everybody wants to speak, because, again, since everybody is under attack, everybody has a say on this, so everybody wants to speak. It’s going to be a long program, the whole day going on. And we hope everybody comes over. We are expecting about half a million people there.

AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to ask, Jorge Mújica, about ICE entering the schools in Chicago and the response, overall, of the community.

JORGE MÚJICA: Oh, they have tried. The Secret Service, back in January, tried to detain, or interrogate, at least, an 11-year-old kid at a school. And that prompted a strong response from the city of Chicago. We have now in place a full policy on who’s responsible for, you know, impeding, really impeding, entry to ICE agencies or FBI or Secret Service, if they don’t follow due procedure, due process. Nobody can enter a school at any time. There are designated persons to talk to the kids about it. Really, the city put a whole plan together for the safety of the kids.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about, Nisha, here in New York, this executive order that was signed yesterday, the targeting of sanctuary cities?

NISHA TABASSUM: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean for New York City?

NISHA TABASSUM: It means that New York City really needs to stand steadfast in its protections of years of advocacy, passing laws that protect immigrants coming into New York. They make up the fabric of everyday life. Immigrant New Yorkers, you know, their labor powers our cities, and they make our cities vibrant. Studies have shown sanctuary city laws actually make our communities safer. It fosters actually more trust between immigrants and law enforcement to come forward and report crime. So we’re really, like, urging cities and states to remain steadfast in their protections and not give into these threats from the Trump administration.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And finally, Georgia Flowers, what are the plans for the rallies and the marches on May Day in Los Angeles, for those people from that area who may want to participate?

GEORGIA FLOWERS LEE: So, we are meeting at 9 a.m. in the intersection of Figueroa Street and Olympic Boulevard, gathering together with hopefully 100,000 of our friends and neighbors, and we are marching through downtown to City Hall. So, we’re looking for folks to come out and join us. And there’s every indication that it’s going to be massive.

AMY GOODMAN: And before you go, Georgia Flowers Lee, in Los Angeles, as an educator and a person who’s particularly concerned with children on the autism spectrum, how have Trump’s budget cuts impacted kids, particularly in your schools?

GEORGIA FLOWERS LEE: So, we are watching what the effect of these proposed cuts could be. So, our students are entitled — our students with special needs, particularly on the autism spectrum, are entitled to supports that allow them to thrive, to show up as their best selves in our classrooms. And so, we are pushing to make sure that those supports remain. However, whatever the federal government cuts has to be made up for at the local level. And so, our district, our state will have to absorb those costs, which means that, you know, there will be less to fund all our students if the federal government is not providing what it should to help support our neediest students. So, we are pushing our district to make sure that they continue to get whatever they can, and we are really impressing on our state Legislature to continue to provide for our students, to make sure that our students have access and that they have the resources that they need.

AMY GOODMAN: Georgia Flowers Lee, I want to thank you so much for being with us, vice president for United Teachers Los Angeles; Jorge Mújica of Arise Chicago; and Nisha Tabassum of Make the Road New York — all involved with organizing May Day protests beginning on Thursday, on this hundredth day, this conversation taking place, of President Trump back in office.

Coming up, we speak with Palestinian American writer Sarah Aziza, author of the new book, The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Take a Minute” by the Somali Canadian musician K’naan, performing in our Democracy Now! studios back in 2009.