SAN ANTONIO – Thousands of people marched through downtown San Antonio on Saturday as part of the nationwide “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration.
The mostly peaceful protest started at Travis Park, including remarks from Democrats like U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, and Greg Casar, D-Austin, and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio.
There, people held signs reading “All power to the people,” “No Kings,” “We the people,” and “Democracy yes! Dictators no!”
The group later marched through downtown, chanting “hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go” and “this is what democracy looks like.”
Isabel Kalb, 23, told KSAT her grandparents survived the Holocaust, and she believes she’s “watching my country descend into fascism.”
“I’ve grown up hearing ‘never again,’ and never again is now. All the signs are here,” she said. “I’m a teacher. I am watching my kids and their parents get deported. I had a kid whose father was kidnapped while he was at school by ICE. We don’t know where he went. My school is getting defunded. It’s enough.
“I don’t know how anyone can be silent right now.”
Phillip and Norma Canedo, both 76, said they lived through the Vietnam era but hadn’t protested anything until this year. So far, they’ve been to 10.
“We love our country and we love our kids and we love everybody in this country, and they need to be protected. And our freedom of speech, our rights and our immigrants, too. Everyone,” Norma Canedo said.
“It’s just terrible what he’s doing. It’s terrible what the Republican congressmen are doing, which is nothing,” Phillip Canedo said. “They are not — they have taken down any guardrails for his actions. So he has freedom to do whatever he wants, and he is doing whatever he wants, unfortunately.”
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Across the nation, this was the second “No Kings” protest and third mass movement against the Trump administration this year, according to the Associated Press.
It comes amid an intensifying conflict between federal law enforcement and protesters nationwide.
Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott decided to send the National Guard to Austin ahead of the protest, which he said was “antifa-linked.”
“Texas will deter criminal mischief and work with local law enforcement to arrest anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property,” Abbott said in a statement.
Some conservative politicians have condemned the protests as “Hate America” rallies, while others say that they represent a “patriotic” fight for First Amendment rights.
A website for the protest movement claimed more than 7 million people had turned out to more than 2,700 events on Saturday. An online map showed protests in all 50 states and some abroad.
The last “No Kings” protest took place on June 14 in thousands of cities and towns across the country, including San Antonio, in large part to protest a military parade in Washington that marked the Army’s 250th anniversary and coincided with Trump’s birthday.
During the June protest in San Antonio, two organizers started a demonstration at Travis Park that led to a two-mile-plus march through downtown streets.
Scenes from the ‘No Kings’ protest on Oct. 18 in San Antonio:
The Associated Press contributed to this report.