‘Good Trouble Lives On' protests across US against Trump policies

Al Jazeera

3 days ago

Demonstrations have taken place at more than 1,600 locations around the United States, in protest against President Donald Trump's controversial policies that include mass deportations of immigrants and refugees and cuts to medical insurance, as well as the removal of other safety nets for impoverished people.
The 'Good Trouble Lives On' refrain that underscored the national day of action on Thursday was inspired by the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who 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 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.
Organisers had called for peaceful protests to take place on the fifth anniversary of Lewis's death along streets, at courts and other public spaces in cities including Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles.
'We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation's history,' Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen, said during an online news conference on 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.'
Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centred on deportations and immigration enforcement tactics, as well as access to healthcare.
The administration has pushed third-party countries to accept deportees, and the African country of Eswatini has confirmed this week that it received five individuals deported from the US. The US also completed the deportations of eight men to South Sudan after a judge cleared the way for their transfer to the violence-hit African country.
Trump's administration has also been actively targeting pro-Palestinian activists. Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student imprisoned for more than three months, this month filed a wrongful detention claim against Trump seeking $20m in damages.
The so‑called 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' also prompted a backlash for slashing health coverage schemes, Medicare and Medicaid, by $930bn over the next decade. It could leave as many as 17 million Americans without insurance, in one of the steepest rollbacks of social welfare programmes in the US since their inception in 1935.
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.
Organisers of the June 14 'No Kings' demonstrations said millions of people marched in hundreds of events from New York to San Francisco. Demonstrators branded Trump as a dictator and would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.