Both locally and nationally, this year’s May Day will be a nexus of labor and immigrant rights—a moment shaped by struggle, sharpened by history, and (hopefully) set ablaze by the fire of solidarity.

May Day (or International Workers’ Day) does not belong to parades or platitudes. It belongs to the people: to the janitors who clean glass towers before dawn, to the caregivers who tend to our elders, to the undocumented workers whose sweat undergirds billionaires’ profits, and to those who have always been told they are lucky just to be here.

But luck has never built movements. Struggle has. And right now, the struggle could not be clearer.

Just weeks before his 100th day in office, President Trump inked three executive orders soaked in cruelty and contempt—targeting immigrant communities, attempting to break the will of sanctuary cities, and militarizing law enforcement to act with even greater impunity. One order even insists that truck drivers prove their English proficiency.

Earlier this month, during the wee hours of morning armed ICE agents raided Mt. Baker Roofing in Bellingham like they were storming a battlefield, not a job site. Thirty-seven workers were seized. Tomas Fuerte, speaking through fear and grief, described being corralled “like we were criminals.” But the only crime committed that morning was the brutal separation of laborers from the jobs they had worked, the families they had built, and the communities they had helped sustain.

This is the charged atmosphere in which this year’s May Day arrives: inevitable, insistent, and alive with the echoes of past struggles and the urgency of current ones.

Cal Anderson, 12 p.m.: “We Make America Work”

At 12 pm on May 1st, Cal Anderson Park will be the heart of a protest against the Trump administration’s anti-worker, anti-immigrant agenda. Under the banner We Make America Work, labor leaders from SEIU 775, 1199 NW, Local 925, Local 6, and other unions will join with elected officials and thousands of rank and file members to reclaim the day from the powers attempting to erase them.

There will be puppets, 15 feet tall and hand-built by immigrant workers. There will be speeches.  But most importantly, there will be bodies. Brown, Black, white, queer, disabled, old, young. All carrying a resounding message that the only thing more powerful than the cruelty of the state is the solidarity of the people.

This march is one of over 30 coordinated across the nation, part of a movement demanding not just higher wages or better hours, but a future. A future where dignity isn’t a privilege of the wealthy, but the baseline for every human being who works, dreams, and dares to love this country enough to demand it be better.

Tacoma, 4 p.m.: From the Tollefson Plaza to the Detention Center

Kicking off at 4 pm, a fierce coalition of labor and immigrant justice groups will march on one of Washington’s most shameful monuments to dehumanization: the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC).

“Stand Up for Worker and Immigrant Rights!” organizers cry. And they mean it. Marchers will gather at Tollefson Plaza and head to the gates of the NWDC—a place that has drawn lawsuits, legislative scrutiny, and national condemnation for the way it cages people like animals under the guise of “immigration enforcement.”

Including La Resistencia, Extinction Rebellion Seattle, Tacoma DSA, they will march not only against Trump’s policies but against the moral rot that allows profit to be made from pain as GEO, the NWDC’s owner does. This is not just a protest. It is a reckoning.

Because what is happening in that detention center is not a mistake. It is a choice.

Seattle, King County Superior Court, 12 p.m.: Law Day

And still, the resistance does not end in the streets.

At the King County Superior Court, more than 200 lawyers will gather to retake their oath. Not just as a gesture, but as a vow. A vow that when judges are attacked, when due process is denied, and when the legal system becomes a tool of repression rather than protection, they will not sit quietly.

This National Law Day event, led by Judge Ketu Shah and supported by the Washington State Bar Association, includes attorneys from across the state—public defenders, former legislators, immigration advocates, state prosecutors, and more. It is a reminder that every institution, every profession, every lever of power must be reclaimed by those with the courage to wield it for the true public good.

Because while it’s true that justice is not always found in courtrooms, when it is found, it is because people fought for it to be there.

May 3rd, Olympia, Washington State Capitol, 12 p.m.: All Labor March

Fortunately, for folks who work normal hours and can’t make Thursday’s events, May Day actions will stretch into the weekend, as the struggle of working people never clocks out. On Saturday, May 3rd, the All Labor March will bring together a united front of workers, immigrants, and families at the Tivoli Fountain of the Washington State Capitol at noon. Organizers say this march is a call to reclaim what belongs to the public: schools, healthcare, housing, and dignity. They also say it’s to remind the few who hoard power that the many are awake and rising.

Whether you plan to gather in the streets or observe from afar, let May Day remind us: there is no true freedom without the freedom of immigrants. No workers’ rights without immigrant rights. No justice that does not begin at the margins, where the most vulnerable among us labor, resist, and dream.

It is why we must choose to speak for those who are silenced, to stand for those who are now hunted, and shout to this nation that the hands that built it are still clenched into fists.

May Day is not a holiday. It is a covenant. A promise forged in struggle and continuously renewed each year in the streets, on the picket lines, and in the small acts of solidarity we offer one another.