STATE SEN. GUSTAVO Rivera shows the crowd a “Know Your Rights” flier explaining how to interact with ICE during a third ‘No Kings’ day rally held at East 161st Street and the Grand Concourse on Saturday, March 28, 2026.
Photo by David Greene

 

Meanwhile, Sanchez later said in part, “We are here because our communities are under attack. We thank our brothers and sisters fighting in Minneapolis. The City of New York is nineteen times larger.” She said added in part, “ICE is here today, and so today, we send a strong message: Get out!”

Dinowitz also spoke of the ongoing threat of ICE, telling the crowd, “When President Trump rapidly and vastly increased the number of people who are a part of ICE, he created himself his own personal militia. That’s what’s going on in our country. It’s really scary, but I think we all know that, but we’ve got to make sure everybody understands that, especially before the November election.”

After Carley Rodriguez and Jackie Davis of The Bronx Singing Resistance Choir sang a song entitled, “Abolish ICE,”  Speaker Amreeta Susy Mathai, director of strategy and programs at the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the crowd, “I am proud to say that NYCLU stands with thousands of New Yorkers today in The Bronx, in Manhattan, in Brooklyn, in Queens, in Staten Island, and all over the state, and millions across the country to say ‘no kings, not today, not tomorrow, not ever’.” According to Mathai, the NYCLU has filed 40 lawsuits against the Trump administration this year, while the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed 200.

 

For his part, Rivera displayed “Know Your Rights” fliers he and his staffers have been sharing with constituents since at least last year and passed more out to the crowd. He said other fliers were being distributed to business owners in his district on which it was recommended a room be set aside for employees to gather in if ICE shows up. The senator explained, “This is a private space for employees. That’s where folks should go to protect themselves. Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.” Watch more of his remarks here: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18CTcApGpm/?mibextid=wwXIfr

 

Concourse Village resident Sky Switser and his daughter, Sailor, attended the event with their homemade signs, and when asked why he brought his daughter to the rally, Switser replied, “No, she had heard about the protest and she was the one that said, ‘I want to go.’ She’d been helping the nurses who had been on strike. We went to Black Lives Matter protests when she was a tiny baby.”

 

Meanwhile, Helen Lopez of Fordham Heights recalled, “My family said don’t come out (to the No Kings rally) but I’ve got to protest because I don’t want a dictator in my country.” Attending her fist protest ever, Lopez said, “I’ve got to protest, I’ve got kids. I’m not a grandma yet, but in the future, I’ve got to fight for their rights, my rights.”

 

Asked if she had seen ICE in The Bronx, Lopez said, “I’ve seen the guys, the cops that come in undercover, and I try and tell people, ‘Listen, they are in black cars, they watch, and then they get out of their cars’.”

 

Roberta of Riverdale was attending her third ‘No Kings’ rally, and her second in The Bronx. “I think this was more powerful because it was in the area of The Bronx by the courthouse,” she said. “This one was much better.” Asked what her core issues against the Trump administration were, she responded, “To me, all of the war actions in Cuba, in Venezuela. I consider this a world war on people, and obviously, what’s happening in the Middle East, and ICE is just unacceptable to have lawlessness going on.”

After the rally, Wakefield resident Dale Benjamin Drakeford said, “Look at what ICE is doing in the streets, literally killing people in the streets, and again, you’ve got to give Trump credit for this because Trump said a long time ago that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue, and it wouldn’t matter to his supporters.”

 

Asked why she attended the rally, Yonkers resident Courtney Matute-Reales, a student at Lehman College, said, “In this day and age, we get to see what’s going on all around the world, and to think that to support these policies, and what is going on is just not within me, and so you have to stand up for justice.”

 

During the simultaneous nationwide rallies, two additional ‘No Kings’ events were also held elsewhere in The Bronx. One was held outside The Latino Pastoral Action Center, located at 14 West 170th Street at Jerome Avenue in Mt. Eden, hosted by The Faith Based and Community Leaders’ Alliance. Another rally, held at the Winged Victory Memorial in Pelham Bay Park, was hosted by City Island Indivisible, the Chippewa Democratic Club, the Co-Op City Democratic Club, the Liberty Democratic Association, and the Bronx Chapter of the Working Families Party, and organizers said it was attended by 100 people.

According to John Doyle, Part B male district leader for the 82nd Assembly District in the East Bronx, around 100 Bronx residents came out for the Pelham Bay Park event for what was described as “a spirited protest against the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration.”

 

Doyle said nearly a dozen speakers, including State Assembly Member Michael Benedetto (A.D. 82), and State Sen. Nathalia Fernandez (S.D. 34), spoke to attendees about “the creeping authoritarianism they see originating in the federal government, which they say is unable or unwilling to challenge Donald Trump.”

Doyle said other speakers voiced their opposition to the war in Iran, “the misuse of the military and ICE on American soil, the illegal tariffs punishing middle-class and working families, and the erosion of environmental laws, workers’ rights, and civil rights.” Newly elected City Council Member Shirley Aldebol (C.D. 13) and the campaign team for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) were also on hand to provide support. He said organizers plan to continue additional demonstrations throughout the region in the coming months.

 

Following the various ‘No Kings’ rallies held in New York City, the NPYD said on Saturday in part, “We had tens of thousands of people across all five boroughs peacefully exercising their first amendment rights, and the NYPD made zero protest-related arrests.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that police in Los Angeles had to deploy tear gas on some members of a ‘No Kings’ rally group who reportedly refused to disperse from an area near a federal detention center. Police arrested 74 people, it was reported. The London Daily Mirror reported that 50 supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, some wearing “Proud Boys” T-shirts, got into some heated verbal exchanges with others as they attempted to disrupt a similar rally near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. No injuries or arrests were reported at that event.

 

Meanwhile, the group, “Showing Up for Racial Justice,” is planning a national May Day protest on May 1, Labor Day in Europe, to call for “no work, no school, no shopping” on that day.

At the federal level, to mark the third No Kings Day, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced she would be introducing new legislation to bar the use of a sitting U.S. president’s name, image, likeness, or signature to decorate or designate federal property, assets, or currency.

 

Back in The Bronx, Stephen Real, an organizer with Northwest Bronx Indivisible, said in part that ‘No Kings’ was a celebration. “It’s a day to affirm and exercise our democratic rights. It’s day when ordinary people from all walks of life come together to recognize that none of us are alone, that we all share a similar sense of dismay at what Donald Trump is trying to do to our country, and to realize that, together, we can be brave enough and strong enough to stop him.”

Marcelo Lopez, president of the Bronx Unity Democratic Club, said in part, “As President Trump escalates his attempts to control us, it is on us, the people, to show that we will fight to protect one another and our community.” He added, “From Norwood to Hunts Point, The Bronx will continue to resist together, and we will never stop protecting our neighbors, fighting for our rights, and demanding justice.”

 

Meanwhile, Ramdat Singh, a Bronx community organizer who emceed the rally, said in part, “Today’s No Kings march is a powerful reminder that democracy does not belong to the powerful; it belongs to the people. It is built on the voices, votes, and values of everyday citizens who refuse to be ruled, silenced, or sidelined.”

 

Read our coverage of prior No Kings rallies here and here.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.