Illinois and Cook County law enforcement have constructed designated areas for protesters to “safely exercise their rights” outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in suburban Broadview.

Chicago taxpayers paid $6.3 million to settle 54 lawsuits, according to a WTTW analysis of city records. An additional $4.5 million went to pay private lawyers to defend the conduct of CPD officers named in those lawsuits.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Chicago and across the country Saturday in opposition to President Donald Trump’s administration. Organizers say the national No Kings Day of Defiance aims to reject authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics and the militarization of the country’s democracy.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered at multiple protest sights across Chicago and the suburbs Saturday in protest of the Trump administration.

Opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration are set to rally in hundreds of cities on Saturday during the military parade in Washington to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary, which coincides with Trump’s birthday.

“I am counting on all of Chicago to resist in this moment,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “Whatever particular vulnerable group is being targeted today, another group will be next.”

From Seattle and Austin to Chicago and Washington, D.C., marchers have chanted slogans, carried signs against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and snarled traffic through downtown avenues and outside federal offices.

President Donald Trump called protesters in Los Angeles “animals” and “a foreign enemy” in a speech at Fort Bragg on Tuesday as he defended deploying the military on demonstrators opposed to his immigration enforcement raids.

“The people of Los Angeles and surrounding areas have taken a courageous stand against Trump’s reign of terror targeting immigrant families,” according to organizers in a social media post about the planned protest.

This appears to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor.

Supporters from a diverse coalition of local grassroots organizations and labor unions marched the streets to protest the Trump administration’s policies. May 1 is known as May Day or International Workers’ Day.

A judge on Wednesday released a Palestinian man who led protests against the war in Gaza as a student at Columbia University and was arrested by immigration officials during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship.

More than 1,100 protest events are scheduled in nearly 1,000 cities across the country for May Day.

The protests Saturday spanned more than 30 cities in Illinois as part of a “Hands Off!” National Day of Action campaign in more than 1,300 locations in all 50 states.

John Schwarz, the 57-year-old founder of The People’s Union USA from Chicago, is calling on Americans to boycott Amazon and its companies, including Zappos, Ring, Whole Foods, Twitch and Prime Video, for one week.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests. The cases were opened using the department’s power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of its investigations, which stem from complaints.