May 1 is International Workers Day, also known as May Day. May Day has its origins in the US labor movement’s fight for an 8-hour workday and is celebrated around the globe. May Day increasingly and rightfully has centered on immigrant rights in the US because immigrants have been under attack for decades.
This May Day, it’s all the more crucial we stand up because President Trump and his administration are illegally firing thousands of federal workers and targeting immigrants—and anyone suspected of being an immigrant— through a militarized, violent, and unconstitutional mass deportation machine.
The time for solidarity is now. As UCS President Gretchen Goldman said,
“It is essential that members of civil society stand together at this moment to preserve the basic rights granted to all US citizens as well as people residing within our country including free speech, free assembly and due process. Our freedom and rights are on the line.”
A wake-up call for climate advocates
As climate advocates, it’s important to recognize that what’s happening right now has a lot of implications for our work, as more and more people might find themselves forcibly displaced by climate-fueled disasters. People move for many reasons, and no matter the reason, their human rights must be respected.
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on climate impacts points out, “Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Small Islands and the Arctic.”
Richer nations that have contributed the most to causing the climate crisis bear responsibility for addressing these kinds of inequitable impacts in a fair way, including helping to protect the rights of those who lose their homes and livelihoods to climate change and may need to move within their own countries or across borders.
Migrant rights under attack
The Trump administration is doing quite the opposite. In mid-April, a US citizen was arrested in Florida and detained by ICE (US Immigration Customs and Enforcement) after entering the state from Georgia for work. Luckily, he has since been released, but he should never have been in ICE detention. And now, the Trump administration is removing US citizen children. The administration is actively conducting illegal activities against the ruling of the courts and denying people, including children, their constitutional rights.
You have likely heard that the administration illegally sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador despite a court ruling protecting Garcia from deportation. And now that the Supreme Court has ordered Trump to “facilitate” Garcia’s return to the US, the president is taking no accountability to right this egregious wrong—and this should be concerning for all of us in the US, including citizens.
The government continues to test the limits of its overreach: in March, the government detained Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, and she is still being held in violation of her constitutional rights. Moreover, the government revoked visas for hundreds of international students, but recently had to reverse course due to mounting lawsuits and public pressure. If you’ve been waiting for a wake-up call to join the resistance, this is it.
Let’s be perfectly clear: people in the United States—regardless of their immigration status—have rights and protections under our Constitution. The system of checks and balances is being tested as Trump runs yet another play in the authoritarian playbook.
This new registry effort, along with the many attacks this week on immigrants—from canceling their social security numbers, to IRS data sharing, to the audits of potential green-card applicants’ social media for their political views—put us on a dangerous trajectory of an authoritarian state,” says Nicole Melaku, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA), a multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition of 86 of the nation’s largest immigrant and refugee rights organizations.
Standing in solidarity across movements
Alongside immigrant rights and legal groups such as the NPNA, United We Dream, and the American Civil Liberties Union, my colleagues and I stand firmly against these inhumane actions. We will not remain silent while the government unlawfully detains, disappears, deports, and denies people due process.
“Social science research finds that interrupting authoritarian behavior by government officials is essential to protect democracy…We will not blunt the theft of our rights and freedom by remaining silent,” says Gretchen Goldman.
Trump’s morally repugnant agenda makes us all less safe, and this moment calls on us to be courageous, to share resources like know your rights cards and trusted legal help, and to take a stand in solidarity with immigrants and against the Trump administration’s disregard for human rights, the constitution, and the law.
People I love, my friends, family, and coworkers have different immigration statuses, and I am an ally and advocate for immigrant and refugee rights. My first protest march was May Day 2014 while I was interning at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and we marched against then President Obama’s deportation actions. The signs we raised as we walked through the streets of Chicago declared “stop deportations” and “legalización ahora” (legalization now).
Notably, May Day 2006 marked the largest protest in the US for immigrant rights in response to anti-immigrant legislation passed by Congress in the House (which went on to fail in the Senate). And in 2017, May Day demonstrators opposed Trump’s first attacks against immigrant workers. Now, with Trump’s second administration hellbent on destroying civil rights and deporting our friends, coworkers, neighbors, and loved ones, we must stand firmly in solidarity for May Day 2025.
Without going into a history lesson, the US immigration system is broken and makes it nearly impossible for people from certain countries to immigrate to the US legally. Therefore, many people are living and working in the US without authorization, commonly referred to as people who are “undocumented,” but never the I-word, and are anxiously awaiting opportunities for a pathway to legal status and/or citizenship.
Mass deportation puts our loved ones and neighbors at risk, and US citizens have been and will be caught up in the rush to detain people (yes, because of racism)—and it puts critical systems and workforces at risk. Our food and farming system, for example, heavily relies on immigrant and migrant workers without whom food would rot in fields and grocery prices would rise even higher.
And do you know who is often on the frontlines of cleaning up and rebuilding our communities after disaster strikes? Migrant workers. Instead of cruelty, we should be embracing compassion for people who are finding refuge in our communities.
Join a May Day protest near you
This May 1, people across the nation will demonstrate our collective power in support of worker and immigrant rights. This year’s rallying cry and call to action is: “One struggle, one fight, all workers unite!” The two fights are inseparable because, as this website explains: “Immigrants are workers, and workers are immigrants. Our fight for fair wages, safe workplaces, and dignity on the job is the same fight for immigrant justice.” As a worker who gets to work with immigrants every day, and as a proud member of UCS United, under the Progressive Workers Union, I will be raising my voice for worker and immigrant protections.
UCS is a science advocacy organization founded in protest, and while we acknowledge that we are not leaders in the fight for immigrant and refugee rights, we know that we cannot “stay in our lane” when human rights are under attack. We will not be silent because we have a duty to stand up for them.
All workers are under attack from this administration. As of April 2025, more than 120,000 federal workers have been fired by Trump and Elon Musk, and mass firings are being announced nearly every week. These firings are not only threatening people’s livelihoods, but depriving the American people of vital resources, information, and taxpayer-funded services.
We cannot let the administration get away with its illegal overreach in firing workers and devastating our agencies under the guise of “efficiency.” We at UCS have been vocal in our support for federal scientists and workers who are unlawfully being terminated. As Gretchen Goldman states, “In the short term, this indiscriminate smashing of agency science infrastructure disrupts the pipeline of the scientific workforce and derails the careers of thousands of federal scientists. In the long term, it threatens the future of scientific progress in the United States. What the hell for?”
We will continue to speak up and out, and share resources for federal scientists as these attacks on workers and immigrants continue.
“Mayday” is a distress signal, and we need all hands on deck to fight against Trump’s attempt to replace our democracy with authoritarianism. This moment calls on us to prove our commitment to our values and to be courageous. UCS puts science into action for a healthy, safe, and just future—and sometimes putting science into action means calling out Trump’s growing authoritarianism and his Project 2025 cronies when they come for our people.
I am proud to stand the fight for justice and declare: One struggle, one fight, all workers unite!
I’ll be peacefully marching this May Day, and I hope you will join me at an event near you.