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Civil rights groups, labor unions, LGBTQ+ advocates, veterans, and election reform activists united Saturday for “Hands Off!” demonstrations across the country, demanding action on immigration, healthcare, and workers’ rights. Community members also rallied in Sackets Harbor, New York, against the ICE detention of a mother and three children in a farm raid near border czar Tom Homan’s hometown.
More than 150 organizations coordinated protests at over 1,200 locations in all 50 states, including midtown Manhattan in New York City; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; Los Angeles; Charlotte, North Carolina; and other cities.
Thousands of protesters gathered to voice frustrations about the Trump administration’s deportation policies, human rights abuses, and the firing of thousands of federal workers. The frustrations also veered into issues with the administration’s decision to close Social Security field offices, scale back protections for transgender people, and cut funding for health programs, among other things.
Dozens of advocacy organizations partnered for the nationwide protests, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Arab American Institute, Declaration for American Democracy, and United We Dream.
Saturday’s turnout was beyond what organizers had anticipated, Axios reported. Raleigh had 2,000 people RSVP for the protest, but the number of attendees ended up being much more — in total, roughly 45,000 people showed up. Organizers estimated that actual numbers far exceeded the 500,000 RSVPs they received nationwide as of Friday night.
“Today in New York City, we’re saying #HandsOff our democracy, due process, federal workers, immigrants, LGBTQ community, and anyone else that Donald Trump and Elon Musk think they can take advantage of,” NYS Assemblymember Robert Carroll, who attended the protest, posted on X. “Americans don’t want their bigoted, self-serving, and chaotic government.”
While the Hands Off! protests unfolded nationally, around 1,000 protesters in the small New York village of Sackets Harbor marched to Homan’s home to protest the detention of a family late last month by immigration agents, as part of the growing national resistance to immigration enforcement policies and broader rollbacks on civil rights. They called for the release of three children and their mother, who were detained by immigration agents at a nearby dairy farm late last month.
The family was taken into custody by ICE on March 27 during a search related to a separate child pornography case. The family is now being held in Texas. Two of the detained children attend Sackets Harbor Central School. Teachers and the school principal joined the protest, highlighting the children’s integration in the community and their declared immigration status before the ICE operation.
“We’ve seen it occur right in the last 60 days across the country, but when it happens in your backyard, I think that’s what garners people’s attention,” Jefferson County Democratic Committee chair Corey Decillis told NBC News.
Elsewhere on Long Island, a community rallied around Yader Salgado, a Nicaraguan immigrant facing possible deportation after the Trump administration ended a humanitarian parole program for certain nationalities. The Department of Homeland Security revoked temporary protections for about 500,000 immigrants from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti, and Cuba, who had been legally admitted under the CHNV humanitarian parole program. Families and elderly individuals now face arrest and detention unless they leave within 30 days.
Salgado, a Northport High School graduate and church member, returned to the U.S. last year under the program. He and his wife quickly became integral to their church community, working and volunteering at Trinity Episcopal Church. While Salgado has applied for asylum and cannot legally be detained until his case is reviewed, his future remains uncertain.
The stories emerging from places like Sackets Harbor and Long Island personalize the stakes, showing how policy decisions reverberate through classrooms, churches, and neighborhoods. And as hundreds of thousands marched nationwide for the Hands Off! protests, their message was clear: America is not only watching but mobilizing, and demanding a government that upholds dignity, due process, and human rights for all.
