LOS ANGELES (AP) – Thousands of people protesting mass deportations planned by President Donald Trump marched in Southern California in the United States (US), including in downtown Los Angeles where demonstrators blocked a major freeway for several hours.
Protesters gathered in the morning on LA’s historic Olvera Street, which dates to Spanish and Mexican rule, before marching to City Hall. They called for immigration reform and carried banners with slogans like “Nobody is illegal”.
By the afternoon, marchers had blocked all lanes of US 101, causing traffic to back up in both directions and on surface streets. The demonstrators sat down in lanes, while a cordon of California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers stood by. It took more than five hours for the freeway to fully reopen, CHP Lieutenant Matt Gutierrez said.
The CHP and the Los Angeles Police Department said there were no reports of arrests.
To the east, hundreds of people protested in the city of Riverside. Passing motorists honked and yelled out in support of demonstrators waving flags at an intersection, the Southern California News Group reported.
And in San Diego, hundreds rallied near the city’s convention centre. In Texas, demonstrators gathered in downtown Dallas in a pair of protests against recent arrests by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Dallas police told The Associated Press that approximately 1,600 people gathered between the two rallies.
Marchers carried Mexican and American flags and speakers expressed outrage about the rhetoric from Trump and his administration’s moves to increase deportations.
Signs held by the protesters included one that read ‘Immigrants Make America Great’.
