A protest against President Trump’s recent executive orders was held on Saturday, Jan. 28 at the Edward A. Garmatz United States Courthouse. A couple hundred protesters gathered in front of the Thurgood Marshall statue and then marched along Hopkins Place and W. Lombard St. towards the Inner Harbor.
Since he assumed the presidency, Trump has issued a slew of executive orders ranging from banning travel from seven Muslim majority countries to rolling back the Affordable Care Act.
They held signs and chanted as they marched. Some said “Big Oil Out of Native Land! No to DAPL!” while others, who are members of the Communist Workers World Party, said “Fight Trump! No Racism, No Sexism, No Capitalism” and “Fight for Socialism.” The Baltimore County Green Party also passed out flyers during the protest.
Nina Grossman, a PhD student at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, was specifically protesting Trump’s executive order that indefinitely suspends Syrian refugees and bans travel to seven majority Muslim countries. She was also protesting policies against undocumented immigration.
“I’m really scared and disappointed in the executive actions that President Trump has enacted,” Grossman said. “I just thought that it’s my role to stand up for people who have fewer rights under this administration and whose lives are at stake.”
Grossman went on to explain some of the misconceptions people hold about Muslim immigrants and refugees.
“I think there’s been a lot of falsehood about immigrants who are screened to make people afraid of them and make them feel that they’re a threat, when there’s really no evidence that that’s the case,” she said. “Most terrorism in the United States is actually perpetrated by far-right organizations and individuals and not Muslims or immigrants.”
She also reflected on the negative effects the executive order will have on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This was a policy enacted under President Obama’s administration that allowed more leniency in immigrant deportation.
“I think a lot of people who got the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals are really scared right now,” Grossman said.
Laura Brown, an advocate for LGBT+ rights and the removal of the Dakota Access pipeline, felt she had a responsibility to attend the protest.
“I’m mainly here for the new orders on the DAPL because a lot of my friends are Native American and they’re personally upset about it, so I feel like I should come here and represent them,” Brown said. “I hope to see less hate and less discrimination towards the LGBT+ community, and I definitely hope the DAPL laws are repealed.”
The event also included speeches by protesters who felt that their rights and freedoms have been, or will be, attacked under President Trump’s administration. One female protester shared her fears about the future under a Trump presidency.
“I feel like we had somebody watching our backs with President Obama. He gave me my rights. I’m now able to be married to my wife, when I couldn’t be before,” she said. “But then we had this crazy man come in, and he’s destroying America — he’s making it into a fascist country. And so we stand here and fight and say, ‘No! We want our democracy, and we want to be represented by people who care.’”
Another woman, who came from a family of black Republican Trump supporters, emphasized the importance of being aware of the facts and not the “alternative facts,” a phrase used by Kellyanne Conway who is a counselor to President Trump.
“I’m here right now for the blacks, the gays, the whites, the trans, the he, the she, the they, the them. I don’t really care about your fake news or your alternative facts. I’m here for the real facts,” she said.
She also called on people to tell anyone they know who voted for Trump that they stood up for something that was racist.
A woman who was concerned about public school funding urged people to get involved at the local level.
“This is a fact. Baltimore City schools have a 130 million dollar deficit. Where did the money go?” she said. “Baltimore City’s tax base is richer than it’s ever been. Right now we’re thinking globally, I need you all to act locally. Please support the Baltimore City public schools and support the children of Baltimore.”
The last speaker, a Native American woman, asked the crowd to educate themselves on Native American history.
“I need you to know that everyone needs to be against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Support those protestors and the water protectors,” she said. “The U.S. government doesn’t want you to know that we are around or know our history or our rights. That means you need to learn about it yourself.”
She urged people to educate themselves about Native American history so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.
“If you don’t know our history, our rights, our unique system of government and about how our tribes are all different, all of this is going to repeat, our rights will be taken away and our environment will just go down the sh*tter,” she said. “Keep fighting, because this is far from over.”
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