This article will be updated throughout the weekend with on-the-ground reports, photographs and videos from demonstrations across the United States and internationally.
Mass “No Kings” protests draw millions across US and around the world
The third round of the mass “No Kings” demonstrations on Saturday drew millions of people into the streets across the United States and internationally in what appears to have been the broadest expression yet of popular opposition to the Trump administration.
According to the Democratic Party-aligned 50501 Movement, more than 8 million people participated in over 3,300 locations nationwide, making it, in their words, “the largest single-day protest in modern American history.” The organization stated that 600 of the protests took place in mostly rural, Republican-leaning communities, underscoring the breadth of opposition to the Trump regime and its policies of oligarchy, dictatorship, war and anti-immigrant repression.
The largest demonstration took place in the Twin Cities, where 50501 organizers said more than 200,000 people attended. Many in Minneapolis carried signs memorializing Renée Good and Alex Pretti, US citizens murdered by the immigration Gestapo earlier this year.
Large demonstrations were also reported in major urban centers across the country, including an estimated 350,000 in New York City along with tens of thousands in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; and Dallas, Texas, alongside rallies in smaller towns and rural areas. The scale of the protests points to a deep and growing social anger that extends far beyond the framework of official politics.
Demonstrations and solidarity rallies were held in Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy and other countries. This international scope reflected the broader reality that the issues driving people into the streets are not exclusively American but expressions of a deepening global crisis of capitalism.
While the official “No Kings” organizers either downplayed or ignored the illegal US war against Iran in their public framing of the demonstrations, anti-war sentiment was visible at every protest. Alongside signs denouncing ICE raids, deportations and attacks on immigrants, demonstrators across the country carried placards opposing war and chanting against both militarism abroad and repression at home.
If there was a slogan that rivaled “No Kings” in frequency and intensity, it was “No ICE, No wars.” This reflected the real political consciousness developing among broad layers of the population: the understanding that dictatorship at home and imperialist violence abroad are two sides of the same class policy.
The presence of Democratic Party politicians and trade union bureaucrats at some of the largest rallies was aimed at subordinating this opposition to capitalist politics. In Minneapolis, speakers included Senator Bernie Sanders, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, SEIU President April Verrett and AFT President Randi Weingarten. Their role was not to develop an independent movement against dictatorship, war and social inequality but to channel mass opposition back behind the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracies, institutions that defend capitalism and have facilitated the growth of the far right.
Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site and members of the Socialist Equality Party intervened at demonstrations throughout the world where they advanced a socialist perspective to halt the drive towards World War III and end the reign of the oligarchy.
David North barred from speaking at “No Kings” rally in Nuremberg, Germany
World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North was prevented from speaking Saturday at the “No Kings” rally in Nuremberg, Germany, after organizers, who had said there would be an open mic, blocked him from addressing the crowd because he intended to condemn the illegal US war against Iran and the Democratic Party’s support for it.
In video of the confrontation, Democratic Party-aligned organizers repeatedly refused to say whether North would be allowed to speak. One told him it was a “non-partisan event,” to which North replied, “Does that include allowing a socialist to speak?” Another responded, “Thank you, no kings.” North answered, “We don’t have a king, we have an oligarchy, which is bipartisan, run by both political parties, and you have a war going on in which thousands of people are dying.”
North then explained the significance of what was taking place: “I’m not being allowed to speak because I was going to speak against the war in Iran, which is supported by the Democratic Party.”
Addressing WSWS readers after being denied the microphone, North continued: “This is why Trump dominates the country, because there is a phony opposition in which the Democratic Party is in a bipartisan alliance with Trump to block any opposition to the war in Iran.”
North added that, had he been permitted to speak, he would have recalled the historic significance of Nuremberg itself. “What I would have said, had I had the opportunity, is that this city, 80 years ago, was the site of the Nuremberg trials, where those who were responsible for World War II were tried for crimes against peace—the same crimes which are being committed today by the American government.”
At Romulus, Michigan rally, immigration attorney Eric Lee calls for working class movement against detention camps, dictatorship
Immigration attorney and Socialist Equality Party member Eric Lee spoke at the “No Kings” rally in Romulus, Michigan, where he detailed the horrific conditions immigrants, including his clients in the El-Gamal family, have endured at the Dilley detention center in south Texas.
The family, including 5-year-old twins, a 9-year-old, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, along with their mother, have been held for more than nine months at the concentration camp, where they have endured inadequate medical care, abusive guards and inedible food. After speaking out against these deplorable conditions, guards separated the 18-year-old from the rest of the family.
“This goes beyond negligence and ‘bad apples,’” Lee said. “This is a systemic effort by the federal government to carry out child abuse, to kill detainees, to allow them to die. This is not just a moral issue. The Trump administration is attempting to establish a dictatorship in this country.”
But Lee warned that the fight to defend democratic rights cannot be subordinated to the Democratic Party. “If this movement is going to develop to actually bring to a close and to criminally prosecute every single ICE official and White House official who’s responsible for carrying out this attack on the rights of immigrants, for assassinating American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis, it’s going to require a movement that takes an entirely different orientation than an orientation to the Democratic Party, which is responsible for the very laws that allow for the mass detention that exists in this country.
“Dilley was opened by the Obama administration. It was kept open by the Biden administration. The laws that exist in this country that keep immigrants out of federal court—the 1996 laws—were passed almost unanimously, and in fact that fight was led by the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration in 1996.”
Lee concluded by appealing to the crowd: “Study the history of this country. Study the history of the struggle against fascism in Germany and Spain, because what this country needs is a mass movement from below based in the working class.”
Romulus rally exposes Democrats’ role in covering for ICE and war
Hundreds of people gathered outside the proposed ICE detention center in Romulus, Michigan, as part of the broader “No Kings” protests on March 28 to oppose ICE, the war against Iran and the Trump administration. Many in attendance were local residents appalled that their community was being used for a concentration camp. The rally was open to anyone who wished to speak, and several community members did, including a teacher at a Romulus middle school and a former security officer. Both denounced ICE’s criminal operations. The protest remained peaceful despite the presence of several ICE agents nearby.
Several Democratic Party establishment politicians were present, including US Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Debbie Dingell and Shri Thanedar; Wayne County Commissioner Allen Wilson; and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, who is currently running for Michigan attorney general. Also present were representatives of various liberal and pseudo-left organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America and Rank MI Vote. The protest was organized by the Coalition to Shut the Camps, which formed in late February 2026 and has held weekly demonstrations outside the Romulus site.
Representative Tlaib, who had also appeared at another “No Kings” protest in Detroit earlier in the day, gave a brief and politically empty speech. While criticizing ICE abuses, she implored those in attendance to “continue to speak truth to power,” “speak up” and “resist.” Tlaib, an elected member of Congress for the Democratic Party, which represents the corporate oligarchy, at no point called for the political independence of the working class, seeking instead to channel mass anger back into the ritual of protest itself.
In describing “how bad ICE is,” Tlaib also claimed that during the Obama administration a policy “had” to be passed to prevent ICE enforcement at funerals, apparently hoping the crowd would not notice the contradiction. The claim suggested that a Democratic administration could impose minor restrictions on ICE operations while supposedly bearing no responsibility for the agency itself. This was apologetics aimed at absolving Obama specifically, and the Democratic Party more broadly, of responsibility for ICE and its long record of abuse.
When Tlaib arrived at the protest, she reportedly attempted to park on ICE facility property rather than in the designated parking area less than 100 yards away. ICE agents apparently approached her and told her to move the vehicle, prompting a heated response. This was not only an unserious political stunt. It could also have provoked an aggressive reaction from ICE, which has already shown that it has no hesitation about arresting sitting members of Congress.
Representative Dingell did not speak, but Tlaib endorsed her sponsorship of a bill to prohibit ICE from conducting enforcement near sensitive locations. Such legislation has no chance of being enacted under Trump and amounts to political theater. Its implication is that neither Dingell nor Tlaib objects to ICE enforcement as such, only to its present form. This is underscored by Dingell’s January 22, 2026 statement on the Homeland Security funding bill, in which she declared that “no one should fear the federal agents that are meant to protect us” and called for “transparency and accountability” through “enhanced training” and body cameras.
It should also be noted that on March 5, one week after the start of the illegal war against Iran, both Dingell and Thanedar voted in favor of House Resolution 1099, reaffirming Iran as the largest state sponsor of terrorism and thereby helping provide political cover for American imperialism’s criminal actions.
Thousands rally at Indianapolis Statehouse in “No Kings 3” rally
Thousands of students, workers and retirees protested on the grounds of the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis on Saturday. The crowd filled the Statehouse lawn and surrounding downtown streets and was larger than the demonstration held in October last year.
Groups of protesters marched in both directions around the capitol building, chanting and carrying handmade signs against the threat of dictatorship, attacks on democratic rights and the war against Iran.
Participants cited their concerns over massive military funding and the attacks on immigrant rights, healthcare and education. Estimates of the crowd size ranged from 4,000 to 6,000 people.
Representatives of the Socialist Equality Party campaigned throughout the afternoon, emphasizing that the Democratic Party organizers of the protest were deliberately seeking to exclude discussion of the war against Iran from the event.
One worker who spoke with SEP members said, “The whole reason I came here was I was hoping for some anti-Iran war agitation. I’m against the war in Ukraine and the war in Iran, so this seems like an organization I would be interested in. Most of the liberal left in America, especially the Democratic Party, are against the Iran war, but are completely in favor of sending weapons to Ukraine.”
Another young worker said, “It’s insane, really. It’s an absurd premise that we should be going to war with Iran... The only people it benefits are the people who are selling the weapons. The cost is being taken from us. It is being taken from the American people. It could be used to build schools, build infrastructure, give us healthcare. There are so many things that the American population needs.”
Speaking on the danger of a police-state dictatorship in the United States, he said, “I think we are already almost there. I mean, we basically are. The evidence is Minnesota, and not just Minnesota, but all of the cities around the United States where that’s happening now, and the airports as well. It’s really just escalating beyond comprehension.
“The United States has been a police state since the beginning of the ‘war on terror,’ which has really escalated it. It’s the logical conclusion of imperialism coming home to roost. It’s imperialism being done to the Palestinian population, and now we’re just experiencing even a tablespoon of that. It’s just an ounce of the taste, but even that is fascist. It’s police totalitarianism. It’s the complete removal of any rights that we’ve been told we have for generations. They are just gone now. They have just evaporated like they never existed to begin with.”
When asked about the role of the Democrats in collaborating with the fascists in the Republican Party and the Trump administration, another young worker said, “I was just thinking about it this morning, because there’s such a frustration over how so many of the current problems and issues have been allowed to happen because of the system that has been set up under the liberal Democratic order. There has been so little accountability for big companies, so little accountability for hate speech online... It makes sense why we’re in this situation, because there has been so little action from the Democrats.
“I was a Democrat, I would say, five years ago, but at this point I am not. I would say I’m independent, and that’s the way a lot of people, especially younger people, are going.
“The point of being here at these protests, and a big part of what I’m trying to do, is find other organizations and be more open-minded about what’s out there, because I don’t feel like I identify with the Democrats. I certainly don’t identify with the Republican Party, and I am really curious about what other people have to offer right now.”
A young social worker carried a sign reading, “Stop Funding Genocide. No War with Iran.” Asked why she was at the demonstration, she said, “Because we have a fascist president. He has been funding genocide in Gaza and the Middle East.” She said the US-Israeli air assault was “terrorism” and added, “It’s imperialism, and we have to stop colonizing the Middle East.”
SEP members distributed more than 1,000 copies of the party’s statement to protesters. Dozens of workers and young people stopped at the SEP literature table to sign up, buy literature and discuss the party’s program.
Thousands protest across Pittsburgh region against dictatorship, deportations and war
About 15,000 people took part in “No Kings” protests across the Pittsburgh region on Saturday. The largest demonstration was in downtown Pittsburgh, where between 7,000 and 8,000 people began gathering around noon.
Thousands more joined smaller protests across southwestern Pennsylvania, including in Greensburg, Indiana, Butler and Washington.
Most people carried homemade signs denouncing Trump’s drive toward dictatorship, ICE deportations, kidnappings and murders. Other signs linked the Trump administration to the Epstein files. Many also brought signs opposing the war in Iran.
Sarah and Kearra, students at Perry High School, said they came to protest ICE deportations.
“I want to see everybody have rights,” Sarah said. “It’s like there are targets on certain people’s backs. I just don’t think it’s right. They are picking up people for nothing. Some are citizens. It is hurting all of us.”
“It’s time people stand up to fight against this,” Kearra said. “People are here for a better life, but they’re being mistreated. Everyone is the same.”
Their friend Felix, a student at Lock Haven University in north-central Pennsylvania, said he came because many of his friends are immigrants. “There is a lot going on that needs to be fixed. Trump is calling us dangerous. My friends are suffering because of it. I’m suffering because of it.” Felix added that he is transgender and fears he will lose access to the medical care he needs.
Brianna, a student at Slippery Rock University, came with a group of friends to one of the regional demonstrations in the Pittsburgh area.
“I just feel that Trump is a threat to our country. He is a very hateful person, and I feel that he spreads division. I’m sick of his lying. Every time he opens his mouth, it’s lies. I’m sick of the corruption.
“I’m sick of the cutting of important research that we should have.
“This country was built by immigrants, and nobody here is really from here. We’re all from somewhere else. This operation is such a big issue. I think it’s really important that we focus on making it easier for people to get into this country. People are coming here to seek asylum, to seek a better life.”
Asked about the war in Iran, Brianna said the United States was seeking to recolonize the world. “It’s like we are reinventing what was done 100 years ago. They want to control the whole world. They want the oil. They want the oil from all over the world. Trump’s a sociopath, and he’s willing to take innocent human lives to do that.
“I think it’s all about power for him. He was a corrupt businessman his entire life. That’s his background, and that’s what he focuses on. That’s how he’s running the country now. He wants to get as much money and power as he can.
“I feel like the system has been this way for a long time, and it’s only become more obvious with Trump in office, because he’s so blatantly corrupt about it. But the entire system is geared toward the wealthy and whatever can make them the most money.
“I honestly think they see the rest of us as slaves. We are like cattle to them. We’re building this country, and they’re reaping the benefits.”
At Toronto “No Kings” protest, anti-war sentiment collides with Democratic Party politics
Several hundred people gathered in front of the US Consulate on Toronto’s University Avenue to protest the construction of a police-state dictatorship in the United States and the illegal war on Iran.
The organizers, Democrats Abroad, could give only the most limited expression to these sentiments. After first thanking the Toronto police, who have been exposed in recent weeks by the “Project South” investigation as little more than a criminal shakedown operation, the organizers selectively denounced some of the crimes of the regime in Washington without offering any political perspective on the origins of these crimes or how they can be stopped. They distributed a chant sheet and the lyrics to a version of the song “America the Beautiful.”
The only organization to provide such a perspective on the day was the Socialist Equality Party. More than 150 copies of the statement, “The fight against the war on Iran is at the center of the fight against Trump’s dictatorship,” were gratefully received. None of Toronto’s pseudo-left groups were present.
Significantly, condemnations of the war were raised by an independent group of Iranian workers, who carried handmade signs bearing the slogans, “Hands off the Middle East,” “No to US imperialism, No to Zionist expansionism, No to Islamic Republic,” and “Targeting civilian infrastructure is a crime.”
Workers present were receptive to the SEP’s message that the fight against the dictatorship being constructed in the United States requires the independent political mobilization of the working class in the struggle for socialism and the development of an anti-capitalist, anti-war movement.
Many workers were confused about how such a struggle must be organized.
A young medical researcher from Wisconsin agreed with the statement that the Democratic Party would never mount a fight against Trump’s dictatorship, but was unsure what the alternative was. Another worker declared that a “human revolution” was required, consisting merely of “recognizing that we all have the same worth.” Members of the SEP explained that for genuine human equality to find institutional expression in social relations, the working class must conquer state power.
One older American woman said that she was “fighting for our grandchildren.” Many described the Democrats as “spineless.” Another woman held aloft a sign calling for Trump’s impeachment. When asked by an SEP member who exactly was going to carry that out, she replied, “That’s a great question.”
Thousands gather in front of Federal Building in Ann Arbor Michigan
Roughly 3,000 protesters gathered in front of the Ann Arbor Federal Building to oppose the Trump administration’s drive toward dictatorship and world war. Throughout the day, hundreds marched in from other parts of Ann Arbor to join the rally before departing again for a march to the University of Michigan campus, where they dispersed in front of Rackham Graduate School. Nearly 2,000 protesters assembled at a separate demonstration in nearby Ypsilanti.
Members of the Socialist Equality Party and its youth movement, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, spoke with demonstrators on the necessity of building an international working class leadership, independent of the Democratic Party and the American ruling class, to bring down the Trump administration and end the war against Iran. They received a warm response. Workers and youth who stopped to speak with SEP, IYSSE and World Socialist Web Site reporters expressed deep opposition to the role of the Democratic Party in enabling the Trump administration’s authoritarian and imperialist policies.
There was unanimous opposition to the ICE Gestapo’s kidnapping of immigrant workers and youth and to Trump’s latest preparation for authoritarian rule, the placement of ICE officials in major airports. Protesters also expressed deep opposition to the US war against Iran, with several drawing connections to the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As at previous demonstrations, many protest signs invoked the heritage of the American Revolution of 1776 and its democratic traditions. In discussions with SEP and IYSSE members, several protesters raised questions about the history of the 1917 October Revolution and the politics of its co-leader, Leon Trotsky.
The rally’s official leaders, identified as members of the Democratic Party, its protest affiliate Indivisible, and trade union bureaucrats from the American Federation of Government Employees, offered no perspective or analysis of the political crisis driving millions into struggle across the country and internationally.
Democratic Socialists of America member and Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi served as the rally’s featured speaker. While promoting his campaign for Ann Arbor mayor, Rabhi sought to funnel opposition back into the Democratic Party and electoral politics as American capitalism lurches toward dictatorship and nuclear war. He even took time to praise Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell, a multimillionaire and loyal defender of the political establishment.
San Francisco Bay Area protesters denounce Trump, ICE and war on Iran
Thousands of people attended “No Kings” protests Saturday across the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco, Oakland and San José. The general sentiment among protesters was one of outraged opposition to Trump’s dictatorship, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the war on Iran.
Some of the rallies were addressed by leading Democratic Party politicians, including Senator Adam Schiff and Congressman Ro Khanna in San Jose. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and numerous other pseudo-left tendencies were also present.
A World Socialist Web Site team intervened at the protest in Oakland, distributing hundreds of leaflets and engaging protesters in pointed political discussions. Most protesters agreed with opposition to capitalism, as well as to the Democratic Party’s enabling of Trump, though many also suggested that the Democratic Party could be reformed.
The central question of the day, as WSWS reporters emphasized, was what class can stop Trump and the drive toward world war, and how that can be done. Some protesters went on to purchase literature from the WSWS team to deepen their political education on these issues.
One protester told the WSWS, “The focus right now seems to be on Trump, but the reality is it’s a class problem, not an individual problem.
“The working class knows that imperialist war is not in the working class’s interest. We all have an interest in opposing imperialist war.
“We should unite all struggles regardless of the union bureaucracy. It’s the rank and file that makes us the class. And I think that the call for a strike on May 1, a general strike, is a very good one. It should take place on a broad basis in the working class, and I hope it gets deepened and continued.”
Another protester told the WSWS, “Our country is supposed to be founded on the power of the people, but it hasn’t been that way for a long time.
“What I would say to the Iranian people is that right now we are under authoritarian control, and what’s going on does not represent the will of the people of the United States of America. The majority of us are disillusioned by this fascism and what’s going on. We don’t want this war. We do not want innocent people being killed.”
Protest fills Norfolk, Virginia’s Town Point Park
Some 500 people gathered in Town Point Park in Norfolk, Virginia. A Socialist Equality Party table featured literature and placards calling for a general strike against the Trump government.
Isaiah, a truck driver, spoke in support of a general strike.
“It’s amazing that we are talking about a general strike, which is exactly what we need to do. A lot of people think that voting is going to stop this, but it’s two parties of the same system. They do the exact same thing. If we’re about ICE, about Israel, all these things, both parties are going to be in support of those things.”
Isaiah added, “I pull containers right out of the port here in Norfolk, and I guarantee you, if most truckers stopped going into these ports, all of the corporations within a 200-mile radius will cease functioning.”
In Los Angeles, anti-Trump anger collides with Democratic Party control
In Los Angeles, thousands took part in the city’s “No Kings” demonstration. On the one hand, there was widespread and genuine opposition to the Trump administration and its reactionary policies, including anger over the war in Iran, mass deportations, attacks on democratic rights and the Democratic Party’s complicity in enabling these measures. On the other hand, the event was heavily shaped by efforts by the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus, above all the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to control and politically contain the protest.
Large sections of the crowd expressed deep hostility not only to Trump but to the entire political establishment. Many participants spoke of worsening social conditions, including the soaring cost of living, the housing crisis and declining real wages. There was a palpable sense that neither party represents the interests of working people. One participant, Mary, captured this sentiment succinctly, describing the Democrats as “Republican light.”
This oppositional mood found no expression in the official messaging of the event. Instead, Democratic Party-aligned organizations and union officials saturated the demonstration with voter registration drives and promotional material for a so-called “billionaires tax” ballot initiative. The measure was presented as a progressive answer to inequality, while its real function is to divert social anger into safe electoral channels.
At the same time, the city’s Democratic Party-controlled administration made clear that it was preparing for repression. In advance of the protest, authorities installed swinging gates along sections of the 101 Freeway in anticipation of possible unrest and the need for rapid containment. As the demonstration unfolded, the Los Angeles Police Department issued a citywide tactical alert, citing “incidents occurring on Alameda between Aliso and Temple” in the downtown area near the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility.
Police moved quickly to assert control, announcing on social media that arrests were being carried out on Alameda Street for “failure to disperse.” Officers forcibly removed journalists, including a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, warning that “mass arrests” were imminent.
March 28 “No Kings” protests: The fight against the war on Iran is at the center of the fight against Trump’s dictatorship
This statement was distributed at “No Kings” demonstrations throughout the US and internationally.
Workers and young people are marching across the United States Saturday in the third round of “No Kings” demonstrations. More than 7,000 events are planned in all 50 states. Together with the massive anti-ICE protests that swept Minneapolis and cities across the country in January 2026, these mobilizations express enormous social and political opposition to the Trump administration.
The question that must now be answered is: Toward what end and on what political basis must this opposition be developed?
Opposition to the escalating war against Iran must be placed at the center of opposition to the Trump regime. Under the standards established at the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War, the initiation of a war of aggression is the “supreme international crime.” Those who launched it are war criminals. And those who—in Congress, in the media and in the political establishment—are providing it political cover are accomplices in these crimes.
The war is now in its fourth week, and the trajectory points unmistakably toward a massive escalation. At least 2,200 U.S. Marines have been deployed to the region. The 82nd Airborne Division is being readied. Trump’s supposed “15-point plan” for peace was designed to be rejected by Iran and to serve as a pretext for a ground invasion.
The consequences of a land war against Iran, a country of more than 90 million people, would dwarf anything the American people have been told to expect. And underlying all of this is the danger of nuclear war. The Trump administration has pointedly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Iran.
The human cost is already staggering. Thousands of Iranian civilians have been killed in the bombing campaign. The escalation of the war will mean tens or hundreds of thousands of Iranian dead, along with thousands of US soldiers. The economic consequences are already being felt throughout the world economy: Oil prices have risen 35 percent since the Strait of Hormuz was closed, driving up the cost of fuel, food and every commodity whose production and transport depend on energy.
Click here to read the rest of the perspective.