ICE, datacenters, voter suppression: key issues expected to draw thousands in US to protests

Thousands of Americans are expected to take to the streets this weekend in mass protests around issues likely to define the midterm elections: widespread violence from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, voter suppression and datacenter construction.The protests – some recently planned in response to last week’s ICE shootings, others an annual event with new urgency – will take place not just in big cities and progressive towns, but also in rural and red areas.US protests have been on the rise in Trump’s second term – with millions rallying against authoritarianism, ICE enforcement, wars in Iran and Gaza and billionaire greed. But progressives aren’t the only ones demanding change; Saturday’s protests against datacenters are organized by conservatives against big AI.ICE OutMore than 70 ICE Out rallies are set to take place across the country on 18 July, as part of a National Day of Action to demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, two men fatally shot by ICE agents in the same week this month. The killings of Salgado Araujo and Durán Guerrero have sparked mounting calls to remove ICE from the streets, with the latter accounting for the 11th fatal shooting by federal immigration officials since the start of Trump’s second term.The anti-ICE actions, which include demonstrations and vigils, are sponsored by a coalition of national progressive organizations, including the Answer Coalition and 50501.“A lot of groups are signing on because we agree that ICE is terrorizing our communities, that we need to stop ICE terror, and to abolish ICE,” said Hunter Dunn, the national press coordinator for 50501.Organizers are not only demanding justice for victims of ICE shootings but also the arrests of officers who are responsible, said Paul Ramirez, a co-founder of the immigrant rights group Valley Defense, which is holding an “ICE Out” rally and vigil in North Hollywood, California.“People are tired of seeing this every single day,” he said, “but we’re going to continue fighting regardless.”Voting rightsA coalition of voting rights groups has planned nearly 700 events across three days as part of the Good Trouble Lives On national weekend of action, which honors the legacy of the late congressman and voting rights advocate John Lewis. Last year’s debut event coincided with the fifth anniversary of Lewis’s death and drew tens of thousands of people on one day of action.The upcoming Good Trouble actions, organizers say, are both a celebration of Lewis and a call to action ahead of the November midterms. The events are planned around the concept of Teach! Reach! Preach! – teach-ins, large voter registration drives, community block parties and sermons all focused on civic engagement and voting rights education.“We see ourselves as building the movement that these times require,” said Barbara Arnwine, president and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, one of the groups spearheading the campaign. “Instead of people just showing up to a rally, to an event, we want them to become voting rights activists.”This year’s campaign is coinciding with a cataclysmic moment for voting rights, punctuated by a supreme court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, prompting a spate of southern states to redraw their congressional maps to dilute the power of Black and brown voters. At the same time, the Save America Act, a bill that Donald Trump has been pressuring House Republicans to pass, would ban mail-in ballots and impose new identification requirements on voters.Daryl Jones, a lawyer with the Transformative Justice Coalition, said he expects the recent voter suppression efforts to boost turnout, which could reach at least 100,000 people. But a more important metric, he said, was not attendance but reach: organizers are hoping to engage a quarter of a million people through their voter education and registration efforts.“At this moment, there’s clearly an attack on the Black vote, brown vote, the Native American vote,” Jones said. “One thing we preach is that fear is contagious, but courage too is contagious.”AI datacenters and bipartisan concernUnlike most movements that have emerged since Trump returned to office, the revolt against datacenters has been a consistently bipartisan phenomenon, galvanizing people on both sides of the political aisle. In the first three months of the year, grassroots groups have delayed or cancelled at least 75 datacenter projects worth more than $130bn, according to a Data Center Watch report.Humans First, a conservative advocacy group, is organizing a nationwide protest against the “unchecked expansion of datacenters” on Saturday with more than 100 events planned in 40 states. The demonstrations are meant to “give grassroots Americans, particularly grassroots conservatives, a voice in the critical debate over policies relating to the building of massive AI data centers”, the group said in a press release.“There is no issue that ignites anger among the conservative base more than the issue of big AI data centers,” Amy Kremer, chair of Humans First, said in a statement. “These data centers, which are often the beneficiaries of the very corporate welfare Republicans claim to oppose, are being forced on communities who do not want them.”