Hundreds turn out against Trump at May Day protest in Tucson

Hundreds of Tucsonans who marched through the streets of Downtown on Friday morning had a long list of grievances against President Donald Trump and his administration.

The sign-carrying crowd gathered at El Presidio Plaza before marching to the Federal Building at 300 West Congress to decry the administration’s attacks on Iran and funding for Israel in its conflicts with Palestine, despite declining economic conditions at home.

Many also condemned Trump’s mass deportations, a lack of prosecution for those implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein files and low taxes paid by billionaires.

“We’re here to show Donald Trump and our government that’s not listening to us that the workers have the power,” said Brinley Carrillo of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, one of the groups that organized the protest.

Friday was May Day, observed globally as International Workers’ Day to celebrate the progress made by laborers and unions throughout history. Hundreds of Tucsonans said they skipped work and school and avoided shopping for May Day.

Nearly 20 local business owners closed for the day or donated proceeds to unions, according to a news release from the Tucson chapter of Democratic Socialists for America, another group behind the protest.

Representatives from numerous local labor unions spoke at Tucson’s May Day event, along with advocates for immigrant and indigenous rights and anti-war activists.

Thousands of similar demonstrations were took place that day throughout the United States, according to the national May Day Strong coalition.

Tucson Magnet High School seniors Emelina Diaz, Paul Mendoza and Nathan Villalovos, standing on a large planter at the plaza, said they were concerned about the possibility that they or their classmates could be drafted into military service.

“I’m not fighting for Israel,” Mendoza said. 

“I don’t want my loved ones to die because of a war that they’re against,” Diaz added.

Villalovos said he discovered recently he’d been automatically registered with the Selective Service System once he turned 18. 

“It’s sad, seeing people dying for simply existing, for stuff they can’t control,” he said. “I hope stuff like this helps people wake up and realize the pain happening around the world. It’s our fault.”

Though she hates the thought of her taxes going to fund wars, Diaz said, she felt lucky to live in an area that hasn’t been ravaged by conflict.

“We can use that privilege to fight back,” she said.

Julian Piña, a first-generation Chicano facing unemployment, said the Israeli occupation of Gaza amounts to a genocide of the Palestinian people.

The Gaza War began in October 2023 but, Piña said, Israel has been working to eradicate Palestinians since the 1940s.

It was reassuring, he said, to see that so many in his community agreed.

“It feels heartening to see so many people out here,” he said. “I just want to see some good changes in the world.”

Kay Beckett, 70, and Ann Burba, 74, had come to the demonstrations early to voice their disagreement with mass deportation policies.

Beckett said she was still troubled by the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents in Minnesota earlier this year.

She was also disturbed by what she knew of the conditions inside ICE detention centers, where many immigrants with no criminal histories are being held.

Burba held a sign with the names of internment camps where the U.S. government incarcerated thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II.

“People like us should probably have been paying more attention to what was going on,” Burba said of her generation.

Burba and Beckett, both retired, said they hadn’t anticipated spending so much time protesting since their departures from the workforce. 

“I did not think we were going to get into another war,” Burba said. “And I didn’t think we’d elect Donald Trump again. I thought we’d learned from the first time.”

“I thought it was a joke the first time,” Beckett added.