Hundreds of planned May Day protests expected to draw thousands of people across US

May Day demonstrators gathered outside the San Francisco International Airport with megaphones and whistles demanding a $30 minimum wage as part of the ongoing nationwide pro-labor protests.

The group could be heard shouting “ICE out of SFO,” among other chants.

Airport officials said the international terminal departure level road was temporary closed to vehicle traffic “in order to safely accommodate free speech activity.”

It later reopened to regular traffic, though the airport noted travelers should allow extra time for residual delays “due to ongoing first amendment activity.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented an intense May Day speech amid nationwide rallies on Friday, pushing a sweeping progressive agenda that includes taxing the city’s wealthiest residents and shielding individuals from federal immigration enforcement.

During the pro-labor rally, Mamdani touted his administration’s efforts to put “working people right at the heart” of his democratic socialist agenda, taking aim at what he called “mega corporations” that he claims are ripping off workers and small businesses.

The mayor promised to fight for “universal child care,” faster buses, cheaper groceries, and “protecting our neighbors from the cruelty of ICE.”

To fund the initiatives, Mamdani openly said he is “working to tax the wealthiest and the most profitable corporations in New York City.”

The mayor emphasized his solidarity with labor unions throughout the speech, boasting about his past appearances on the picket line alongside striking nurses and Starbucks workers.

“There is no New York City without unions,” Mamdani told the crowd.

He concluded the address by quoting American Federation of Labor (AFL) founder Samuel Gompers before leading the rally-goers in a repeated “Union strong” chant.

Gombers advocated against partisanship, particularly resisting Socialist influence within the labor movement.

Former Los Angeles mayor and California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa braved the heat to join the nationwide May Day rallies on Friday, telling Fox News Digital his motivation was to celebrate workers and “protect our democracy.”

“Today on May Day we celebrate the people who put food on our table, people who take care of our kids and our elders, people who work as security officers and janitors,” Villaraigosa said. “We’re here to say we need an economy that’s working for more people.”

“There are too many people who work every every single day, they’re not on welfare, … and they can’t make ends meet,” he continued. “They can’t pay for rent, they can’t buy a home. Gas prices and utility costs are out of reach for them. We celebrate these people who have sacrificed to make our economy better [and] our country stronger.”

Another topic highlighted by activists marching in Los Angeles is immigration enforcement, with protesters fighting against the Trump administration’s strict border and deportation policies.

“We also are marching to protect our democracy,” Villaraigosa said. “To say that every country has a right to secure its borders, but they should do so humanely. That we shouldn’t be ripping children from the arms of their parents. We shouldn’t be able to go into schools and hospitals and courthouses and places of work without a warrant.”

He added he believes detention centers should be “protecting the health and safety of people,” alleging that instead, detainees are “sleeping on the floor, crowded among one another, and dying in [large] numbers.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported 46 deaths in its custody or detention facilities since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025.

There are 68,000 illegal immigrants being held in detention centers as of February, a more than 70% increase from the 39,000 who were being held at the end of the Biden administration in December 2024, according to the KFF, an independent research organization.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

A small group of activists affiliated with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) was seen setting up at the main May Day rally site in South Minneapolis more than two hours before the event was scheduled to begin.

The group appeared to be organizing materials out of vehicles in a nearby parking lot, including signs, water supplies and equipment such as bullhorns and high-visibility vests.

Sticker messaging visible on bullhorns at the scene included phrases such as “Stand with our families,” “F— ICE,” “Free Palestine,” “No human being is illegal,” and “F— the border.”

A flatbed truck and a separate newer rental-style truck were also present, with organizers unloading gear and preparing for the afternoon rally.

The older truck was draped with large banners reading “20th Annual March for International Workers’ Day,” with the same message in Spanish on the reverse, while the newer truck appeared to be outfitted with large speakers.

One protester at the scene was seen filming while draped in a hybrid flag combining LGBTQ Pride colors with the former Soviet Union (USSR) flag, he told Fox News Digital.

The early setup suggests organized preparations ahead of the larger demonstration expected later in the day at Chicago Avenue and East Lake Street.

Lou Villalvazo, a Los Angeles May Day protester representing Teamsters Local 630, told Fox News Digital he joined the rally because he feels the government has “overlooked the American worker.

“Every year it gets harder and harder for people to survive,” Villalvazo said. “… It’s not about Democrat or Republican. It’s us against the billionaires. They’re buying our government. They’re buying these politicians. We’re done with it because at the end of the day, they don’t relate to the worker. … We’re going to march for all workers, for everybody’s rights. Nobody’s illegal on stolen land.”

He went on to label the government “fascist” and call President Donald Trump a “wanna-be dictator who doesn’t know anything about putting gas in your car [or] paying for rent.”

“It’s not about red and blue,” Villalvazo said. “It’s us against the billionaires. … Wake up America.”

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Zainab Hedayat, an Iranian American from Chevy Chase, Maryland, stepped to the front of a Washington, D.C. May Day march carrying two flags of the Islamic Republic of Iran — a striking image within a protest largely billed around workers’ rights and economic justice.

“The USA is shaytan,” Hedayat told Fox News Digital, using the Arabic word for “devil.”

Moments later, she passes Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, a nonprofit that is part of a broad network of organizations examined in a Fox News Digital investigation pushing May Day protests in a leftward turn nationwide.

At the corner of 14th and I streets, Benjamin stood on a light pole above the crowd, waving as demonstrators rounded the turn, like royalty waving regally at the passersby pushing their wagons with signs. Next to her, her companion activist, Tighe Barry, held a sign reading, “Peace with Iran.”

Around them, the protest’s messaging widened. Others raised flags of Palestine, Lebanon and the communist regimes of Venezuela. The U.S. flag was present but far less prominent, trailing behind the cluster of international symbols.

The scene reflected what experts describe as a “red-blue-green” alignment — a convergence of socialist groups symbolized by red, Democratic activists symbolized by blue and Islamist movements and governments symbolized by the Islamic color of green.

That convergence is part of a broader network identified by Fox News Digital: roughly 600 groups with a combined $2 billion in annual revenue organizing thousands of May Day events across the country.

On the ground in Washington, those connections weren’t abstract. They were visible — in the flags, the slogans and the activists moving together in a single march that blended domestic political demands with global ideological grievances.

“U.S. out of Congo!” CodePink activists chanted.

Anti-Trump protesters gathering at May Day rallies in Washington, D.C, New York City and Los Angeles carried posters donning “86 47,” a message that landed former FBI Director James Comey an indictment for allegedly threatening President Donald Trump.

Fox News Digital spotted a D.C. protester holding a sign bearing the message at the corner of 14th Street in, a block from the White House.

When asked what he meant by his sign, he coyly responded, “We’re out in the kitchen.”

He refused to share his name.

A man beside him carried a sign that read, “86 them all.”

“86” is a term used in the military and law enforcement, referring to killing a target. Trump is the 47th president of the U.S.

The message was also spotted on signs at protests in New York City and Los Angeles, Fox News Digital observed.

Fox News Digital’s Asra Nomani, Louis Casiano and Preston Mizell contributed to this report.

Footage was captured of people protesting outside of an Amazon facility in New York City on Friday amid a broader trend of May Day protests taking place nationwide.

Apparently referring to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, one person could be seen carrying a sign that carried the messages, “NO TECH FOR ICE” and “NO TECH FOR GENOCIDE.”

People could be heard engaging in an anti-genocide chant.

Another person carried a sign that read, “NO AMAZON AI FOR DEPORTATIONS.”

Someone else held a sign that read, “Amazon workers say NO TECH FOR GENOCIDE.”

A man donning a revolutionary-style costume took to the streets in Los Angeles on Friday amid nationwide May Day protests.

Lawrence Herrera, 68, told Fox News Digital he attended the rally protest immigration and “the separation of families.”

“People are being taken off the streets for not showing their IDs,” Herrera said. “… They grab you, they put you in detention and nobody knows where you’re at. That’s one of the main reasons why I’m here.”

He added he first wore the costume in 2016 when Trump was elected for his first term.

Attached to the jacket were pins that read “not my president” and “No Kings.”

Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Fox News Digital observed a large amount of porta potties and portable sinks at a Los Angeles May Day rally on Friday, highlighting the organization behind the nationwide protest.

The portable restrooms, stationed in a parking lot, were seemingly provided by “National Construction Rentals,” though it is unclear which organization paid for the service.

Nearby, workers were seen wearing matching bright yellow T-shirts.

A Fox News Digital investigation found roughly 600 groups, with a combined $2 billion in annual revenue, are backing an estimated 6,000 May Day events nationwide.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson joined a coalition of mayors from across the U.S. on Friday signing the Haymarket Declaration, a joint commitment to “defend democracy, worker’s rights and the livelihoods of [their] residents.”

The declaration builds cooperation between cities who are “responding to Trump’s attacks” while “demonstrating solidarity, resilience, and a commitment to economic justice,” according to the mayor’s press office.

“Like the union leaders and workers who fought to win our rights, as cities we must remain unified — because we are stronger when we stand together,” Johnson wrote in a statement on X. “I am honored to sign the Haymarket Declaration — a symbol of solidarity and a shared commitment to defend the rights of workers and their wellbeing while fighting to preserve our democracy.”

Earlier in the day, Johnson praised students at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition May Day event for skipping class, despite the city’s literacy struggles.

Only 4% of Chicago Public School (CPS) students in grades 3 through 8 can read at grade level and 40% of students are chronically absent, according to the most recent Illinois Report Card data.

A woman snaked through the crowd near the Washington Monument at about 12:15 p.m., handing out pre-made protest signs from her group, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that reported $671,799 in revenue in its 2024 tax filing.

It’s a modest sum in a D.C.-area nonprofit ecosystem where many organizations operate with budgets in the tens of millions.

A Fox News Digital investigation found roughly 600 groups, with a combined $2 billion in annual revenue, are backing an estimated 6,000 May Day events nationwide.

Nearby, Karla Pineda, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, stood on a grassy field as activists from the openly Marxist Party for Socialism and Liberation marched past, drums pounding.

Pineda barely glanced in their direction, telling Fox News Digital she is not focused on ideological divides.

Instead, she positioned her work in the middle ground — where, she said, “corporations are held accountable” and “workers are respected.”

“I came to the United States when I was 10 years old. I’m Salvadorian,” Pineda said. “The reason why I came to this country was because back home, we were going through a civil war in the country. The conditions were not safe, especially for a child like myself, so we came here.”

“I’m the product of two immigrant parents who have been in the country since the 70s, working and supporting their families,” she continued. “I was able to grow up here, go to school, and now I’m here in D.C. … Incorporations need to be held accountable and we should not punish the workers.”

Fox News Digital’s Asra Nomani contributed to this report.

May Day protests from Paris and Istanbul to Madrid, Manila and Seoul blended traditional labor grievances over inflation, housing and workers’ rights with anti-war activism, Palestinian flags, anti-Israel rhetoric and broader anti-Western messaging.

Violence erupted in several major cities as demonstrations turned confrontational. In Paris, police reportedly deployed tear gas grenades and made forceful arrests after projectiles were thrown.

In Istanbul, riot police blocked demonstrators from reaching banned Taksim Square, sparking scuffles, barricades and detentions.

In Manila, workers clashed with police near the U.S. Embassy, while in Munich reporter footage showed riot police using batons to push back radical leftist demonstrators after pyrotechnics were set off.

“The United States is fighting to defend the free world against tyranny, and yet across Europe and beyond we are seeing protesters direct their outrage at America and its allies instead of the brutal regimes driving so much of this global instability,” Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation told Fox News Digital. “That should deeply concern anyone who cares about the future of Western civilization.”

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

The head of a major Los Angeles labor union took to the streets on Friday claiming America’s “democracy is under attack,” using an annual workers’ rights march to slam immigration enforcement and demand unity.

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, tied the traditional labor movement to the cause of immigrants.

Wheeler told Fox News Digital the march, while recognizing the historical 140-year fight for the 8-hour workday, was largely in solidarity with immigrant communities who she claimed have been “under attack” by the Trump administration.

“People are afraid to go to work, people are afraid to go the doctor, people [are] afraid to go to school,” Wheeler said.

The union leader alleged that while enforcement initially targeted criminal illegal immigrants, it has since expanded inappropriately.

“It expanded beyond that, to those who were brown,” Wheeler said. “When you see your brown sisters and brothers under attack, that’s a problem.”

She added the labor union has “wrapped our arms around our immigrant community,” to stand with them during what she described as a difficult time.

“Today, we’re talking about unity,” Wheeler said, noting that while protesters fight for respect and dignity on the job daily, the march was focused on a “unified mission about immigrants’ rights, workers’ right and everybody’s rights.”

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Demonstrators gathered outside Trump Tower in New York City on Friday as May Day events were planned across the U.S.

Protesters could be heard chanting “no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”

There was also a call-and-response style chant where someone would say, “Tell me what democracy looks like” and others would reply, “This is what democracy looks like.”

Fox News’ Jennifer Johnson contributed to this report.

Outside George Washington University, Farid Razavi, an Iranian American volunteer with the Iranian American Community of Virginia, did not realize he had set up his table next to activists who support the regime that runs the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Just after 11 a.m., after canvassing the socialist activists for a while to sign his petition for regime change with little luck, he told Fox News Digital, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Razavi said he wants the Iranian regime deposed and recoiled learning the socialist activists support them.

“Unfortunately, some people support the regime, they are funded by the regime, and they claim that the regime should stay,” Razavi said. “The regime of Iran should be toppled. The Iranian regime is very brutal. During the last 47 years, they have executed more than 150,000 Iranian people. … In the last election, only about 8% of the people voted for this regime.”

Fox News Digital’s Asra Nomani contributed to this report.

More than 20 North Carolina school districts canceled classes Friday as teachers participated in “Kids Over Corporations” protests, organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE).

The protest, held at Halifax Mall in downtown Raleigh, drew thousands. Protesters are demanding more funding for public education.

At least 11 school districts announced last-minute schedule changes, leaving parents scrambling to make childcare arrangements, The News & Observer reported.

“Nearly 20 school districts across the state have made the powerful choice to support their workers,” the NCAE wrote in a Facebook post. “It’s a strong reminder of what’s possible when we unite in support of our colleagues and students!”

Fox News Digital’s Asra Nomani is reporting from outside a left-wing group’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., ahead of May Day protests on Friday. Standing on the corner of 4th and 8th Streets in the nation’s capital, Nomani details posters seen at the D.C. Liberation Center, a socialist hub that was making posters Thursday night for May Day demonstrations.

“What is a liberation center? There are about 30 of them across the country. And they are headquarters for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Which is a little bit misleading in its name because in fact, they are self-declared communists,” Nomani says, detailing posters promoting anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rhetoric and May Day.

On the fliers, Nomani notes, are the logos for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union, the AFL-CIO [American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations], the Washington Teachers Union and others.

“What do they have as images there? ‘Educators are workers,’ so these are the teachers’ unions that are letting kids out of school today in Chicago and in Madison, Wisconsin and other places. Why does it matter to look at the fine print? Because it’s there that you can then see the network,” Nomani said. “Then what you have in here is the Far Left Socialist Groups, the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America, and that’s their logo.”

“So what you see then in just this one poster is this ecosystem of the far left organizations that you’re gonna see unfold later today,” she added. “We’re gonna keep teaching you about what is happening in America. These concepts like malign foreign influence, agitation propaganda, and the cognitive warfare that is happening in America.”

It’s showtime in Washington, D.C.

At 10:35 a.m., activists from the Party for Socialism and Liberation arrived at the corner of 23rd Street Northwest and I Street Northwest on the campus of George Washington University, unloading protest materials from a black Subaru Outback hatchback.

They operated like well-trained foot soldiers, moving efficiently as they set up, reflecting the experience they have built organizing protest after protest, particularly since the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in Israel, when they mobilized alongside a coalition of anti-Israel organizations.

The signs this time included recycled messaging, including pro-Islamic Republic of Iran themes such as “STOP WAR ON IRAN!”

Alongside those were familiar political messages like “WORKERS HAVE TRUMP!”—echoing anti-Trump themes they have emphasized since the first Trump administration and continuing into the second.

As outlined in their organizing strategy, a book titled “Socialism Reconstructed,” the group promotes a broader agenda that includes dismantling the United States free enterprise system, the stock market, U.S. military bases at home and abroad and police agencies, as well as freeing prisoners from jails.

They are part of a network financed by a tech tycoon Neville. Roy Singham, an American born self-declared Marxist living in Shanghai. Congressional lawmakers are investigating the network for alleged malign foreign influence, parroting the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party.

Their leaders refused to answer questions. They wear shirts that say, “Socialism is the future.”

Several major unions are promoting May Day demonstrations across the United States on social media meant to protest what leftists condemn as the capitalist billionaire class.

One group posting about May Day festivities is the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which had an annual revenue for 2024 of about $131 million, according to its latest tax filing.

In a post Thursday, the AFL-CIO, which is a federation of 65 labor unions, said, “Working people are living on the edge and struggling to make ends meet. We work harder while our wages don’t budge and the rich get richer.”

“It’s time to show billionaires CEOs the power of our solidarity,” it added.

“We’re coming together at events across the country this May Day to celebrate our solidarity and show that we won’t back down when it comes to our union siblings and all working people,” AFL-CIO wrote in another post on X Friday, promoting pro-socialist events.

It shared a link for people looking for events in their communities.

While May Day began as an effort to protect worker rights, the big-money political operations of labor unions today give the protest a partisan bias that is focused very much today on anti-President Donald Trump rhetoric, critics say.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the United Farm Workers are more unions also promoting May Day events on social media this week.

“It’s #MayDay! Today is about all of us coming together, across race and background, to stand in solidarity for what’s long overdue: Money. Power. Respect,” SEIU wrote on X Friday.

“#MayDay is a reminder for workers to stand together. If you’re going to a May Day event, you can download this graphic and use it as a sign,” UFW also wrote, sharing the graphic.

Fox News Digital’s Asra Q. Nomani contributed to this report

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., celebrated May Day in a post on X Friday as leftist groups plan hundreds of pro-socialist demonstrations across the country.

“Illinois holds a special place in union history. From the Haymarket Riot to the Pullman Strike, workers in our state have given their lives to protect employees’ basic dignities,” Durbin wrote on X.

“On May Day, we recognize their contributions to a more equal, prosperous, and democratic America,” he added.

Here in the good old United States of America, we have a lovely holiday each September called Labor Day, on which we celebrate the contributions of the nation’s workers. We do not celebrate the communist holiday of May Day, as most of the globe does, at least not until recently.

Today, hundreds of leftist organizations and Damoractic Party adjuncts around the nation will rally, protest and cheer on May Day in an act of radical Marxist globalization. It should make Americans who are not fans of Mao’s little red book very nervous.

As usual, progressives want to destroy the wholesome homegrown aspects of our culture and replace them with cold, ugly, almost Soviet-style international slop, even though our American ancestors firmly rejected it.

This is an excerpt from an opinion piece by Fox News Digital columnist David Marcus

The Madison Metropolitan School District is closed on Friday as left-wing activists mobilize for May Day.

“Our Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI) partners recently shared that they received 70% of staff signatures supporting participation in ‘A Day without Immigrants’ as part of the May Day Strong national day of action,” the district noted in a message on its website about the school cancellation.

MTI is a teachers’ union.

“I’m in shock,” Wisconsin Moms for Liberty activist Scarlett Johnson said during a Friday morning appearance on the Fox & Friends. “Although maybe I shouldn’t be considering the history of the Madison Metropolitan School District.”

“They are not just indoctrinating the kids in the classroom. They are encouraging actively for students to leave the classroom and go march in the streets with teachers, with administrators,” she claimed.

“And make no mistake about it: This entire rally, this May Day, Friday May 1st … this is an anti-capitalist, anti-Trump movement, and they’re using our kids as political pawns,” she said.

FIRST AT FOX: Some 600 groups, including hard-line communists and groups affiliated with the Democratic Party, are mobilizing all over the country today to demonstrate for May Day, socialism’s high holy day.

A Fox News Digital investigation has identified a sprawling “red-blue” network with combined annual revenue of about $2 billion organizing some 3,000 protests and events and advancing what critics describe as an anti-American agenda. They have called for Americans to skip work, school and shopping.

At the center of the May Day mobilization, which has expanded from earlier indications, is a network of communist, socialist, Marxist and other far-left organizations, led by chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America and a network of groups – including the People’s Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, ANSWER Coalition and Code Pink – funded by an American-born tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, based in Shanghai, promoting the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. 

This is an excerpt from reporting by Fox News Digital’s Asra Q. Nomani, Michael Dorgan and Preston Mizell.