Hundreds of people marched in Milwaukee’s annual May Day protest on a chilly, cloudy Friday, joining thousands of other protests, walk-outs, and economic black-outs taking place nationwide. After first gathering outside of the offices of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera on Mitchell Street, a crowd spanning multiple city blocks marched north towards the downtown Federal Building. 

The action aimed to draw attention to the contributions of working class people, including immigrants,  while condemning the policies of the Trump administration, and calling for the release of Wisconsinites who’ve been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

“No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” the protesters chanted, marching down the roadway with traffic assistance from both their own volunteers and Milwaukee police officers. 

Marchers were greeted with a performance by a mariachi band playing  music as people cheered and danced. Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, said that those at the protest were joining “over 3,000 actions across the country, and tens of thousands of people in more than 30 cities that are part of a national immigrant-rights network.” 

Backed by the occasional rhythms of parade drums and cheers Neumann-Ortiz declared, “We are May Day strong!” She said that those participating in May Day protests are “leading the way in the movement against authoritarianism, against white nationalism, against ICE gestapo terror.” She praised the immigrant workers who couldn’t be there, as well as the students who participated in the May Day protest. Neumann-Ortiz said that President Donald Trump and his allies “want us to believe that we are powerless, and we know that is a lie.”

People of all ages and ethnic backgrounds came from as far away as Racine and Green Bay to attend the Milwaukee protest. They carried signs calling for the abolition of ICE, an end to the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and occupation of Palestinian people, rolling back U.S. militarism, taxing billionaires, an end to local police cooperation with ICE, and generally denouncing Trump’s policies and character.

From the stage, speakers also demanded the reunification of immigrant families separated by ICE, investment in human needs, and the establishment of what Neumann-Ortiz called “a dignified immigration system with a path to citizenship for the undocumented,” as well as for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and people  fleeing danger in their home countries. 

She also called for lawmakers to support granting state driver’s licenses for immigrants and praised members of Congress who withheld funding from  the Department of Homeland Security as they sought accountability and standards for ICE officers. 

Speakers’ remarks in English were  translated to Spanish for the crowd. 

José Ramirez, president of the Milwaukee Chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said he is both the  son of immigrants and an immigrant himself. Ramirez and his sister were born in Mexico and came to the U.S. in the early 2000s. Both of his parents worked in the meat packing industry. When he grew older, Ramirez became a first-generation union member, and worked jobs in concrete and demolition. 

Ramirez asked the crowd to look around at the different colors, flags, signs, and people. “I like to believe that everybody here truly believes in the same thing,” despite their differences, Ramirez said. “That women’s rights are human rights. That gay rights are human rights. That workers’ rights and immigrant rights are human rights.” 

Ramirez stressed that the victories working-class people have achieved have not come because of the sympathy of career politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, but from the sacrifice of working-class people.

Kareem Sarsour, the son of Salah Sarsour —  the president of the Milwaukee Islamic Society who was arrested by ICE in late March — also addressed the crowd. While he was born and raised in Milwaukee, Kareem said that his father was an immigrant who’d grown up as a Palestinian boy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Sarsour was a legal permanent resident for over 30 years when ICE officers ambushed him at a property he owned. Sarsour’s family and supporters believe that he was targeted because of his longtime advocacy for Palestinian liberation, and for sharing his experiences while in Israeli custody. Sarsour is being held in an immigration detention facility in Indiana.

Kareem recalled that on March 30, his wife called him at work and told him  that his father “was abducted and nowhere to be found.” Kareem Sarsour said that “no family should get that call.” He said of Salah Sarsour and other people he called “heroes”  “we believe God is with them, and with our unity we’re able to take a stand and say enough is enough! In sha’ Allah — God willing — justice will prevail, our heroes will come back home, Palestine will be free, and our families will be reunited.”

Ingrid Walker Henry, President of the Milwaukee Teacher Education Association (MTEA), said, “ Everywhere we turn, our rights are under attack. Our neighbors are being terrorized by a hostile administration, they are using every trick in the fascist playbook.” Walker Henry called Sarsour a “pillar of our community,” and denounced his detention. “I have three words — and I’m going to want you to repeat them — free Salah now!” 

Walker Henry said that her union members are getting organized “because we know that no one is coming to save us, except us.” MTEA members established school defense teams to protect schools and families this school year, “because no family should have to choose between taking their children to school and risking their family’s safety,” she said. “Across this city, MTEA members are stepping up to protect our children from this administration.” 

Walker Henry said  actions like May Day teach the next generation how to fight back against oppression. “MTEA members will not rest until every student, every public school, and every family has what they need to thrive.”

International Workers Day on May 1 commemorates the great labor struggles of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when workers fought and died for decent wages and working conditions.

The militant energy of the early labor movement, long dormant in the United States, has been making a comeback recently as Americans chafe at economic instability, the destruction of health care and other basic rights and protections, and recoil from a government dedicated to further enriching billionaires at the expense of working people. Add to that the campaign of terror the Trump administration has launched against immigrants who do much of the manual labor in this country and the violent repression of the neighbors who try to protect them, and it’s starting to feel like 1886.

On Friday, May 1, labor unions and immigrants rights groups are coming together to organize mass walkouts in more than 3,000 cities across the U.S. “No work. No school. No shopping” is the tag line for the national campaign, joined in Wisconsin by Madison Teachers Inc., the Southcentral Federation of Labor, and myriad civic groups. 

This week’s protests grow out of “A Day Without Immigrants,” the May Day general strikes that began 20 years ago to oppose Wisconsin U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner’s federal bill that proposed making unauthorized presence in the U.S. a crime punishable by mandatory prison sentences. For the first time, in those May Day protests, “you saw largely Latino immigrant, working-class families … with grandparents and baby strollers, coming out in this peaceful wave of mass marches,” recalls Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, the Milwaukee-based immigrant workers’ rights group. “It really was like an earthquake, and it shelved that terrible bill and put the conversation of immigration reform back on the table.”

This year, national labor unions are showing up for the May Day actions in a big way. That’s inspiring, because it’s clear that massive resistance from a broad, working-class movement is what it’s going to take to stop the brutal repression and outright theft of public resources by the current regime.

“Workers’ rights and immigrants’ rights are the same,” Andy King, managing director of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) said on a May Day press call this week. His group’s May Day demands include no more funding for ICE and Border Patrol, permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, and stopping the construction of megawarehouses for the mass detention of human beings. 

The fear-mongering about immigrants coming from the Trump administration is not an accident, Neumann-Ortiz said during the same call. “It’s a strategy to divide us, to scapegoat and to distract from the real challenges working families face, and in particular, the growing control of our economy by billionaires.” She talked about the heartbreaking case of Elvira Benitez, a mother of three from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, who was arrested by ICE during a routine check-in after she was approved for a green card. Now she’s sitting in detention in Kentucky, and her youngest daughter is under medical supervision for suicidal thoughts related to the traumatic experience of being separated from her mom, Neumann-Ortiz said.

She also highlighted the case of Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, a legal permanent resident, who was detained by ICE in what appears to be a retaliatory arrest for his political speech defending Palestinian rights. 

A secretive police agency that whisks people away in order to silence dissent should worry all of us. “And these are not isolated cases, as we know,” Neumann Ortiz said. “It’s a system.”

Deaths in ICE custody have hit a new record since the beginning of Trump’s second administration. Yet the federal government plans to expand warehouse detention to house more than 92,000 people. Adriana Rivera of the Florida Immigrant Coalition told reporters on FIRM’s May Day press call, “our state has become ground zero for a system that warehouses human beings for top dollar, makes jokes and merch at their expense, where suffering is hidden and accountability is absent.”

“Shut down these disgusting warehouses and choose a path rooted in care,” she demanded.

What is happening to our country? What will it take to wake people up?

During the same week I listened to activists planning the May Day walkout, my phone rang and an automated voice informed me that Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson was holding an impromptu “telephone town hall” in the middle of a weekday afternoon. I stayed on and listened to Johnson tell his constituents that he favors eliminating the Senate filibuster in order to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security without the guardrails Democrats are seeking for ICE and Border Patrol. We’re living in too “dangerous” a time not to act immediately, Johnson said, and Congress is “too broken” to make these decisions in a deliberative fashion. That’s why, he explained, now that President Trump is in office and Republicans hold a majority, he has switched his position on ending the minority party’s power to filibuster legislation. Johnson wants to get Democrats out of the way to pass the SAVE America Act, which will severely curtail voting rights on the thoroughly disproven theory that undocumented immigrants are voting in large numbers and swaying U.S. elections. 

Johnson listened approvingly to voters on the call who recycled Trump’s Big Lie that Democrats are stealing elections. He expressed his enthusiasm for RFK Jr. and “progress” on his pet issue — getting rid of supposedly harmful vaccines. Some callers expressed anxiety about the Iran war, with Johnson reassuring them that it was going “perfectly.” One woman swore at him and was disconnected. But the most revealing part of the call came when a caller mentioned that a lot of people are worried about health care — a brewing crisis in Wisconsin where 63,000 people are losing Medicaid coverage because of Trump’s cuts and another 20,000 have dropped their Affordable Care Act coverage because of rising premium costs after Republicans refused to renew ACA enhanced tax credits.

The root cause of the problem with health care, Johnson said, is the government’s involvement. 

“Take a look at Amazon, what that private sector competitor has done to deliver products in hours, sometimes at a really low cost. So private sector consumerism works, but we’ve driven consumerism out of healthcare by having somebody else pay for it,”  he said. His solution? “Move to a rational system of catastrophic care plans, and then most of healthcare paid out of pocket with real consumerism.”

Never mind Johnson’s choice to hold up Amazon as a paragon of business, a company that was sued by the Federal Trade Commission for illegally blocking competition, inflating prices using its monopoly power, and stifling innovation. Never mind the multiple lawsuits brought by its drivers for high-pressure, inhumane working conditions and that unfortunate incident in which a warehouse worker died on the floor while his coworkers were allegedly told by management to ignore him and keep production rolling.

Setting all that aside, how many regular voters in Wisconsin agree that the best way to handle crushing healthcare costs is to make them pay out of pocket for every medication, office visit and procedure?

As Trump’s approval ratings reach a new low and gas prices spike, Johnson’s position that you should cover the full cost of your healthcare out of pocket is unlikely to give Republicans a bump.

The problem in our country is that we seem to have lost the class consciousness that animated the labor movement of the Progressive Era.

Instead, today, we have a right-wing populism that purports to defend the interests of blue collar workers but is, in fact, investing in the immiseration of the vast majority of Americans, the theft of their healthcare, their education, their wages and workplace protections, for the benefit of oligarchs like Johnson, who couldn’t care less if people suffer, sicken and die, so long as he remains rich. 

I don’t think people can put up with this for much longer. The inhumane treatment of regular, hardworking people, the pain and waste of the greed-driven regime we are living with should turn the stomach of every American. 

May Day is a sign of hope. 

Advocates and loved ones of Salah Sarsour gathered in Washington D.C. to demand his release from federal immigration detention. Sarsour — a green card holder and lawful permanent resident of Milwaukee and president of the city’s Islamic Society — was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents earlier this month. The federal government accuses Sarsour, who is Palestinian, of lying on his green card application in 1993. 

Sarsour’s son Kareem said that his father is the main caregiver for an elderly member of their family who has dementia. Kareem demanded Sarsour’s release, emphasizing that he is  a father, grandfather and leader in the community. 

Supporters are demanding that Sarsour be released and returned to his family, and that all charges against him be dropped. They also  demanded that the U.S. to stop weaponizing immigration law to target pro-Palestine advocates, and for Congress to investigate the targeting of lawful permanent residents for First Amendment activity. 

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said of Sarsour, “He has spent more than 30 years of his life strengthening those around him. As a Palestinian resident of this country, he has built a huge community. He’s a business owner, a job creator, a leader who is well respected in the inter-faith community, among elected officials, and a diversity of communities fighting in the state of Wisconsin.”

Awad and other supporters of Sarsour say that he’s a political prisoner being persecuted over his opposition of the Israeli government and support for the Palestinian people. “To abduct Salah Sarsour for his politically protected First Amendment activity, upholding justice for the Palestinians and for all people, sends the troubling message that our government is failing to protect basic freedoms that sets America apart from other countries,” said Awad. “We call on this administration to listen to the American people who have been telling them in one form after another to stop the Israelization of U.S. policy, and to serve the American people.” 

Sarsour’s loved ones say that he has long been vocal about Israel and Palestine, having grown up in the West Bank where he was detained for two years by Israeli authorities. Sarsour’s family members say  he was tortured while in custody, a practice which has been documented by humanitarian organizations even in recent years. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement earlier this month that Sarsour had been accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli armed forces.

Sarsour is currently being held in an ICE facility in Indiana. Dr. Osama Abu Irshaid also echoed the First Amendment concerns around Sarsour’s arrest. “What does it even mean?” Irshaid asked. “What does it even mean to be a threat to our foreign policy? Someone who stands up and speaks on behalf of the oppressed. On behalf of a people who were the subject and continue to be the subject of a genocide.” 

Naming other Muslim activists who’ve been arrested or detained by ICE for speaking out for Palestine, Irshaid asked, “what does that mean? Does it mean that America stands for genocide?” Irshaid said that the Trump administration  has openly pursued what it views as political opponents, including high profile people such as former FBI director James Comey, and New York Attorney General Latisha James.

“So America has to reckon with this stuff,” said Irshaid. “It’s no longer about minorities. You could be a white American and be shot in broad daylight and get called a domestic terrorist, as what happened to the two American citizens who were shot by a rogue agency called ICE now,” a reference to the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year.

“And you could be abducted from the middle of the street just because you dare to say I disagree with this government, and I disagree with our foreign policy,” Irshaid said. “And you could be targeted just because you dared, at one point, to prosecute Donald Trump based on the laws of the land.” 

Irshaid stressed that it is time for people to realize “that the weaponization of our own government against any minority group, against any people means that it could be weaponized against the entire American people.”

Oussama Jammal, secretary general of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, also said that he feels Sarsour is being detained for political reasons. “This is a free country, we are allowed to speak our minds,” said Jammal. “Otherwise we could be another rogue country of the ones that we see — what do they call it — banana republics. So we demand the immediate release of Mr. Salah Sarsour, and truly hold the American values ahead of any other agenda other than an American agenda.”