At Baltimore’s “No Kings” rally against the Trump administration, which drew well over 2,000 to a grassy hillside in Patterson Park on Saturday, Susana Barrios and her homemade “Estamos indignados” sign stood out.

It was one of the few signs with a bilingual message.

“Estamos hartos de ver cómo nos arrebatan nuestros derechos,” it said in Spanish. “We are done watching our rights stripped away.”

“A lot of immigrants don’t come to this kind of thing because they’re so scared,” said the Guatemala-born Barrios, who came to the U.S. when she was 10 years-old and works for a local nonprofit.

She described the frightening experience of a friend’s 19-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, who was stopped by ICE agents outside a grocery store in the Lakeland neighborhood.

“They just asked, ‘Are you illegal?’” Barrios said. “When he said, ‘No, I was born here,’ they didn’t believe him.”

It wasn’t until he showed them his Real ID card and Social Security card (“they actually looked up the Social Security”) that they let him go, saying, “you should not be walking, it’s too hot for you to be out walking.”

The young man, whom she’s known since he was five years old, is scared for his non-citizen parents, said Barrios, who worries about her own adult children even though they are American-born citizens.

What if the photos of their passports and birth certificates that they carry at all times now are not enough? What if the agents don’t ask questions but “just pick you up and throw you in a closed van?”

“I am here. Everyone can’t be afraid”  – Susanna Barrios.

“I am a little bit scared myself,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “Because I’m a naturalized citizen and I could be somehow accused of terrorism.”

“But I am here. I don’t care if they see me,” she continued. “Everyone can’t be afraid.”

Barrios was sitting under a tree on the fringes of the rally. Her family’s experiences with political violence and a dictatorship in Guatemala make Trump’s policies seem eerily familiar. Moving her sign to the side, she showed a reporter what was written on her tee shirt:

“I march for the silenced.”

Shock from Minnesota

Baltimore’s march was part of a nationwide protest that drew millions – an estimated $5 million according to the ACLU, one of the organizers –  to streets and parks across the country, with particularly large crowds in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York City.

Timed to coincide with the president’s Washington, D.C. military parade, the “No Kings” action was described by organizers as the second biggest anti-Trump protest during his second administration.

It also took place on the same day as what Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called “a politically motivated assassination” of the top Democrat in the Minnesota House of Representatives and her husband in their home.

The shooter, who had a list of some 70 other potential targets including politicians and Planned Parenthood clinics, carried out a separate attack on another Democratic state lawmaker and his wife. Late last night Vance Boelter, 57, was captured and charged with second-degree murder in the attacks.

As with others around the country, organizers for the Baltimore protest asked for a moment of silence for the victims. A number of speakers addressed the crowd, including Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen and City Council President Zeke Cohen.

“We will fight them in the Congress, we will fight them in the courts, but you are the most important fight we’ve got,” Van Hollen said. “Because you love our country, you want to make sure that it’s not hijacked by a Donald Trump dictator.”

“Just so much hate”

For Harford County residents Steve Bands and Joe Burchill, it was their second “No Kings” protest of the day. The demonstration in Bel Air, they said, was “surprisingly well attended” considering the generally conservative politics there.

Asked what has been the most upsetting about the policies and actions of the new administration, Bands referenced Trump’s meeting in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“That caused me to really despair. That was a turning point,” he said. “For them to turn against someone who’s fighting for democracy was horrible to see.”

Burchill cited the targeted hostility he sees now, not just flowing from Washington but welling up across the country.

“For me, it’s the treatment people are getting from ICE and just general hatred across the board,” he said. “Regardless of immigration status or race or sexual orientation, there’s just so much hate.”

The crackdown on immigrants was top of mind for three special education teachers sitting together on the grass listening to speakers and performers leading the crowd in songs like Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”

“We have a lot of students who are immigrants, and a lot of them have been staying home for weeks,” said Eden, who declined to give her last name. “When there’s a child with a lot of absences, we call and the parents tell us they don’t feel it’s safe.”

Like many speakers at the rally, the three had multiple concerns about what has been happening in the U.S. since the former reality TV personality began his second term in office.

The expansion of executive powers, the drastic cutbacks in scientific research funding and university independence, the proliferation of disinformation and assault on media organizations – these were just some of the issues the women mentioned.

Pushing Past Pessimism

Some in the crowd said they were feeling discouraged, unsure if the event would have any impact. That was the vibe from Denis Rende, a Baltimore area tennis pro holding a sign that said “Rejecting kings since 1776.”

“It’s all so disappointing,” said Rende, explaining that he was referring to both Trump’s actions and what he felt was a too-weak reaction to them.

Why was the crowd so white? Why wasn’t it larger, wondered one participant.

Why was the crowd so white? Why wasn’t it larger like the ones after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis? What impact do such actions really have?

But like others in the crowd plagued by those doubts, he’d pushed past them and showed up.

“You come, you just come. What else can you do?” he said. “And vote. That’s bigger. It’s the voting and getting people to come out.”