When local organizers started planning Saturday’s “No Kings” march, they had no idea protests against deportation would erupt in Los Angeles, the president would deploy the National Guard, or Sen. Alex Padilla would be handcuffed at a press conference. Now, this weekend’s demonstration is inheriting the momentum of these events.
“After what happened to Sen. Padilla, I expect people to be mad and come out,” No Kings organizer Liliana Soroceanu of the advocacy group Indivisible SF said in a text. “The message is to reject authoritarianism and the idea that any one person — including President Trump — is above the people.”
Protesters will likely include socialists, trade unionists, and advocates for Palestine, along with folks who are just angry about raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. All these groups have had a visible presence at this week’s immigration protests.
Soroceanu said more than 4,000 people have RSVP’d for the march, which will start at Dolores Park and end in a rally at City Hall.
“It’s a broad coalition,” Soroceanu said. “And for the purposes of this protest, we’re all on the same page of defending the Constitution and democracy.”
The images emerging from California’s ICE protests are full of green, white, and red — not just Mexican flags but Palestinian flags too. Protesters’ graffiti reads “Fuck ICE,” of course, but also “Ppl over profit” and “Death 2 Israel.”
Some might wonder why protesters at a rally about U.S. immigration are focused on economic inequality or the Middle East. Organizers say the oppression of all subordinated groups is connected — the chant “From Palestine to Mexico, these border walls have got to go” rang out at several recent protests — but the link isn’t just ideological.
Through organizing against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, progressive organizations in the Bay Area have strengthened their connections with residents and with one another, which enabled them to marshal demonstrators at lightning speed in response to the protests against ICE in L.A.
That’s what happened Sunday, when organizers from disparate groups threw together a protest flyer and blasted it out in Signal group chats and Instagram posts. Less than 48 hours after videos of Angelenos blocking ICE agents went viral, boots were on the ground and signs were in the air outside the ICE field office in San Francisco.
“There were people I hadn’t seen since the mass protests of 2016,” said Carlos Michaud, a videographer and media liaison for local progressive groups.
“I found out about [the Sunday protest] pretty last-minute, and in that moment, I was already ready and wanting to take action,” he said, adding that he’d spoken to others in the same situation. The No Kings protest will benefit from those networks.
Demonstrators on Sunday chanted anti-cop, anti-capitalist, and anti-Israel slogans, in addition to protesting the removal of immigrants.
By Monday night, a huge protest came together and marched through the Mission — it remained mostly peaceful, but protestors hit Manny’s with anti-Israel graffiti and broke a window. The cafe has been a repeated target of anti-Zionist graffiti; its owner, Manny Yekutiel, has voiced support for a Jewish state in Israel and Zionist groups in the U.S. while also denouncing the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians.
Michaud and Ramsey Robinson, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said they encourage protestors to remain peaceful.
“That’s not a tactic we think works, and it isolates the masses from the movement,” Robinson said of those who broke windows and pushed metal barricades against a row of police Sunday.
This week, workers boarded up the windows of Union Square stores, including Tiffany & Co., Dior, and Nike, ahead of the No Kings protest.
Michaud said he believes violence can be met and overcome by nonviolence, but no organization can ensure that every person at a protest will feel the same way. Some people just want to break stuff — that’s not something organizers can control.
“Obviously, in such a large group of people, opinions will vary,” he said. But he also credited property destruction with some of the gains won by recent protest movements and said he is always more concerned for the safety of individuals than for “insured corporate property.”
“I don’t even think Derek Chauvin would have gotten arrested if the protests in Minneapolis didn’t escalate to the point that they did,” Michaud said, referring to the police officer who murdered George Floyd in 2020. “If that precinct didn’t burn down, I don’t think he would be behind bars today.”
Soroceanu said organizers trained in de-escalation will be present at the march Saturday and could isolate any agitators.
A volunteer with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism who goes by Deeg said progressive groups have been working together for years and aligned for the Occupy protests, the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, and plenty of other actions. In the periods between major protest movements, people drift away. But many have been tuned in and ready to march for the last 20 months.
“People have been mobilizing for Gaza every day, so people are tired … and organized,” Deeg said.
Israel began bombing Gaza in 2023 after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. The fighting has killed about 1,200 Israelis and 55,000 Palestinians, according to the United Nations, and displaced 90% of Gazans.
Deeg and others see a parallel between the struggles of undocumented people in the United States and Palestinians in Gaza. Robinson pointed out that U.S. law enforcement agencies, including ICE, have sent their agents to Israel for special training.
Labor unions and advocacy groups also convened over the weekend in response to the L.A. protests, where SEIU president David Huerta was arrested. (He was released on bond Monday.)
“We think it’s really ridiculous that Donald Trump called in the National Guard based on 400 protesters in L.A., but when 1,000 people attacked the Capitol and people were actually being beaten to death, he did not,” said Kim Tavaglione, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Labor Council.
Tavaglione added that her group opposes ICE actions in California and violence against protesters and journalists in Los Angeles. She attributed the quickness of the solidarity protests in SF to cross-organization communication that has ramped up since January.
“The community has developed a huge network,” Tavaglione said. “As soon as [Trump] took office, people started to get together.”
On Saturday, many of those people will march through the city. Speakers at the City Hall rally will include environmental activists, advocates for undocumented immigrants, and labor leaders, Soroceanu said. She added that advocacy for any cause is impossible if the country slides into dictatorship.
“We need to defend democracy and the rule of law, and only after that can we proceed to defend individual rights,” she said. “If we lose the Constitution and democracy and become a militarized autocracy, then none of the other goals can be accomplished.”