Nationwide protests planned against Trump's immigration crackdown and
health care cuts
[July 17, 2025]
By COREY WILLIAMS and CHRISTINE FERNANDO
CHICAGO (AP) — Protests and events against President Donald Trump's
controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to
Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people are planned Thursday at
more than 1,600 locations around the country.
The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action honors the late
congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. Protests are expected to
be held along streets, at court houses and other public spaces.
Organizers are calling for them to be peaceful.
“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s
history,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said during an online
news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of
authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration ... as the
rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being
challenged.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit with a stated mission of taking on
corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind
Thursday's protests.
Major protests are planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, as well as Oakland,
California, and Annapolis, Maryland.
Honoring Lewis' legacy
Lewis first was elected to Congress in 1986. He died in 2020 at the age
of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights
activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a
25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march
across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by
police, suffering a skull fracture.
Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyndon
Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that later became
law.
“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of
America,” Lewis said in 2020 while commemorating the 1965 voting rights
marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
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A demonstrator wraps themselves with a U.S. flag during a protest
outside Dodger Stadium, June 21, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP
Photo/Damian Dovarganes, file)
Chicago will be the flagship city for Thursday’s protests as
demonstrators are expected to rally downtown in the afternoon.
Betty Magness, executive vice president of the League of Women
Voters Chicago and one of the organizers of Chicago’s event, said
the rally will also include a candlelight vigil to honor Lewis.
Much of the rest of the rally will have a livelier tone, Magness
said, adding “we have a DJ who’s gonna rock us with boots on the
ground.”
Protesting Trump's policies
Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centered on
deportations and immigration enforcement tactics
Earlier this month, protesters engaged in a tense standoff as
federal authorities conducted mass arrests at two Southern
California marijuana farms. One farmworker died after falling from a
greenhouse roof during a chaotic raid.
Those raids followed Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the
National Guard outside federal buildings and to protect immigration
agents carrying out arrests on Los Angeles. On June 8, thousands of
protesters began taking to the streets in Los Angeles.
And organizers of the June 14 “No Kings” demonstrations said
millions of people marched in hundreds of events from New York to
San Francisco. Demonstrators labeled Trump as a dictator and
would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.
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Williams reported from Detroit.
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