Roughly 300 people gathered in front of the old Florida Capitol in Tallahassee Wednesday afternoon to protest the Trump administration, including the president’s actions against immigrants and transgender people.
The protest, which went on for hours under the sun, was part of a nationwide movement that started online calling for 50 protests in 50 states on one day under the hashtag #50501.
“We need to be loud,” Madalyn Propst, a lead organizer of the protest with the climate activism group Sunrise Tallahassee, told the growing crowd as the protest began. She told the Florida Phoenix that organizing the event, which drew people from other parts of the state, had required a quick turnaround.
Protesters held signs bashing President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, plus Project 2025, which is the Heritage Foundation’s strategy for the administration. Other signs called for the protection of immigrants, LGBTQ people, reproductive rights, and the environment.
Calling out rhetoric against immigrants
Although the protest had no singular focus, attendees and organizers spoke against Trump’s promises of mass deportations.Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has signed an executive order attempting to get rid of birthright citizenship, removed temporary protections for Venezuelan immigrants, and sent migrants that the administration claims are part of a Venezuelan gang to a temporary holding facility in Guantánamo Bay.
He’s also barred military service by transgender people and sought to limit therapies for transgender children and adults through age 19.
“People, the Trump administration would like you to believe that the immigrants are the enemy, that they are criminals, that they are wrong, but that’s not the case,” Simon Monteleone, another organizer from Sunrise Tallahassee, said. “They are the same people who are your coworkers, who are your administrators, who are your friends and your family, and the people you go to comfort for. He’d like to say that they are criminals while he sits in that office with 34 felony charges.”
Democrat lawmaker wants protesters to get involved in legislative process
Orlando Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani briefly joined the protests, urging people to contact their representatives and attend the Legislature’s committee meetings.“I want you to know that even in this building, where Democrats are outnumbered dramatically — there’s only 33 Democrats out of 120 House members — we are not stopping, we are not slowing down,” Eskamani said. “What it requires is a consistent persistence for something greater than ourselves. I’m not gonna lie, I’m tired.”
She continued: “I am tired of having to deal with the same shit every single year to have to constantly beg for there to be some sense of compassion. But I don’t know. I’m not begging anymore. We are fighting.”
Eskamani highlighted the special session last week, when the Republican-led Legislature passed a bill targeting immigrants living in the state without legal permission. The bill, known as the TRUMP Act, remains in limbo since Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed to veto it after labeling it weak.
“Not first on the chopping block”
Jackie, an Orlando woman who requested her last name not be used out of fear of persecution, said she wasn’t aware that the public had the opportunity to speak during the special session. Aside from advocacy groups such as the Florida Immigrant Coalition, the haste of the two-day session meant there wasn’t much time for public input.“As a woman, my rights are being threatened, but I am not first on the chopping block. So, I feel as though it is the responsibility of those who are not under immediate attack to stand up for the many, many, many people in our communities that Trump’s policies are very deliberately attacking,” she said, citing her Cuban mother’s fear of denaturalization as an example of how immigrants are living in anxiety. “It just feels too important. There’s too much at stake to sit home and pretend like it’s not happening just because it’s not me first.”
Vietnam war veteran Tom Baxter echoed that sentiment, saying he didn’t go to Vietnam so Gov. Ron DeSantis could send immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
“I’m a privileged person, and I have to stand up for the oppressed,” he said.
Tampa
Protests also took place in other Florida cities such as Tampa, where several hundred gathered in mid-afternoon in front of City Hall.While the 47th president’s actions over the past two weeks were the genesis of the protest in Tampa, many in the crowd targeted Musk, the South African-born billionaire who has been allowed to exert unprecedented control as he executes Trump’s cost-cutting initiative.
“He’s unvetted,” said Hillsborough County resident Donald Veasey.“He has not passed any security checks. He’s not authorized to access the people’s computer systems. He needs to be arrested.”
Tim Ehrlich, a pastor from Pinellas County, said that with combating climate change his most important issue, he was extremely unhappy about reports that the Trump administration has warned more than 1,000 employees with the Environmental Protection Agency who work on climate change and enforcing environmental laws that they could be fired at any time.
“Every day there was a new outrage from Trump and now it’s happening again, but now worse, because he’s had four years to prepare,” he said, comparing the first few weeks of Trump’s first term in office with the past two weeks.
Linda Saul-Sena, a former longtime member of the Tampa City Council and a Democrat, said her biggest concern was the announcement that the U.S. was withdrawing from the World Health Organization. The administration said it was doing so due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, its failure to adopt needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from other WHO member states.
But she said she was happy about one thing: that everyone at the rally was “thrilled to have an opportunity to gather and say, ‘This is not acceptable. This is not the country we love and want to protect.’”
Tampa resident Tara Ortiz said she was proud to be part of the demonstration, adding that a lot of her friends declined to attend due to safety concerns.
“But not me,” she said “I’m coming out. I’m joining the forces. We’re going to make a difference. He’s not going to take our country. We are going to fight every step of the way, because we’re Americans, and we want freedom for everybody.”
‘Head in the sand’
Some of the demonstrators expressed similar sentiments, but acknowledged they felt let down by the Democratic Party and its leaders.“The Democratic Party has had its head in the sand for a long time,” said Erlich. “The real issues that people are concerned about they’re not addressing. Taking care of the economy. That was the number one issue for people. They did a very terrible job at communicating all the good things that they were doing. I mean, Trump said on Day One he was going to lower food prices, and instead we have tariffs now, which are going to raise prices.”
The Trump administration announced over the weekend that it would impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico but then agreed to delay them for one month after the leaders of those countries announced moves to increase security at their borders. A 10% tariff on all goods imported from China did take effect on Tuesday.
Grace Staudenmaier, a 23-year-old who travelled from Orlando for the protest, said that progressives had become complacent in recent years, but feels that will change as Trump continues to radically change the federal government.
“They were playing the defense while unfortunately the right was playing offense,” she said. “And only now are they realizing that they got complacent; they got comfortable. You know for a while we sat here and said, ‘“Gay people already had rights. Women already have rights, so what else do we have to fight for?’ But the truth is that hate is always still there and it’s a continuous fight to stand up for people.”
