No Kings Protests Draw Global Crowds for Third Consecutive Round

Alex Pretti and Renee Good did not live to see Saturday's march. Their deaths in Minnesota in January, during federal deportation operations that NBC reported occurred "at the hands of federal agents" deployed to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, helped ignite what became the third and reportedly largest round of "No Kings" protests, with more than 3,100 registered events spanning all 50 states and 16 countries.

Organizers expected more than 9 million people to participate, according to CBS News. Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin put the stakes plainly: "I would expect March 28 to be the biggest protest in American history."

The movement's reach extended far beyond U.S. borders in ways that revealed a sophisticated organizing infrastructure. Rallies were planned from Europe to Latin America to Australia, Levin told CBS. In countries with constitutional monarchies, where the "No Kings" framing carried different political weight, organizers rebranded entirely: those protests ran under the banner "No Tyrants." The coalition behind that global scaling spanned anti-authoritarian groups Indivisible and 50501, alongside Public Citizen, MoveOn, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Action Network, labor unions and dozens of grassroots organizations, according to The Guardian and NBC News.

Minnesota's Twin Cities emerged as the flagship site, chosen explicitly in recognition of residents' resistance to the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that descended on Minneapolis and St. Paul this winter, The Guardian reported. The January deaths of Pretti and Good, which NBC said occurred at the hands of federal agents who "faced scrutiny over their brutal tactics in handling immigrants and protesters," transformed the region into the movement's symbolic center.

The St. Paul rally carried star power proportional to that grief. Senator Bernie Sanders, actor Jane Fonda and musicians Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez were all scheduled to appear. Crowds gathered at Western Park before marching, with the St. Paul event page framing the day in terms of mourning and defiance: "a day of healing for those who've seen violence, a day of celebration for the lives of those we've lost."

A speaker identified in NBC's coverage only as Parker captured the current running beneath that framing. "We've also seen our neighbors executed, American citizens executed, and our children carrying the burden of owning their own power and walking out of school in defiance," Parker said. "The people of America are pissed. They are the ones demanding for no kings."

The White House responded by dubbing the protests "Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions." That dismissal came as an NBC News poll conducted earlier in March found majorities of registered voters disapprove of the president's handling of immigration, Iran and inflation and the cost of living, though the poll released no specific percentages.

Saturday's demonstrations also marked the first No Kings protest since the joint U.S. and Israeli war against Iran began roughly one month ago, a fact organizers said sharpened the movement's urgency. Fox News noted the latest rallies aimed explicitly to "build local displeasure with the administration over the Iran war and immigration enforcement."

The movement's growth from one round to the next has been steep. Organizers told reporters in an online news conference Thursday that they estimate the first No Kings day in June 2025 drew more than 5 million people and the October round more than 7 million. Their own website described the June 2025 event as inspiring "a nationwide uprising 14 times larger than both of Trump's inaugurations combined."

Scenes from the day reinforced the breadth organizers had promised. In New York, Attorney General Letitia James and City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams were photographed attending a rally. A protester in an "Uncle Scam" costume marched through Manhattan. In Washington, demonstrators spread out near the Lincoln Memorial. In Boston, a protester arrived wearing a paper crown, a deliberate inversion of the movement's central metaphor. For those unable to attend in person, activist group Stand Up For Science hosted a virtual event online.

The organizational playbook behind all of it, a distributed network of more than 3,000 registered events now exported to 16 countries under two different names, was precisely what the White House's three-word label was designed to obscure.