8 More East End 'No Kings' Protests Set for March 28

Billed as the largest of the bunch is a rally in Riverhead that starts at noon Saturday at Riverhead High School, with participants scheduled to march two miles to Riverhead Town Hall, where more than a dozen speakers and musical performers are expected to address the crowd until 3 p.m. The continuing U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) mass deportations will be the main focus.

“The marchers will join other protestors at Town Hall to urge officials to stop ducking moral and civic responsibility to address the disruption and chaos reaped by random ICE raids in our communities,” advocates stated in a news release previewing the rallies.

The Twin Forks area protests are among more than a dozen across Long Island and thousands nationwide that organizers say will be the biggest in U.S history. In addition to ICE, advocates have also taken to the streets in protest of the administration’s federal funding cuts, alleged withholding of some Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation files involving the president, and the war in Iran. The name of the national day of action alludes to Trump’s efforts to expand the power of the executive branch, sparking the widely held belief that he is imposing a dictatorship akin to a monarchy.

The other East End No Kings events are a march scheduled to depart from the Montauk Lighthouse at 5 a.m. and arrive in Hampton Bays at 7 p.m., a rally from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Suffolk County Riverhead Center, another from 10 a.m. to noon at Greenport Mitchell Park, and a rally from 11 a.m. to noon at Steinbeck Park in Sag Harbor. Also on the agenda are rallies 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at East Hampton Town Hall, noon to 2 p.m. in Hampton Bays and 5 to 6 p.m. in Southampton.

“Community members have felt personally, and acted locally, to challenge an aspiring king and protect migrants whose only crime is to come here as our ancestors did,” Riverhead No Kings coordinator John McAuliff said. “Now we face the consequences of abuse of power internationally as an undeclared illegal war takes innocent American and Iranian lives and wreaks havoc in the economies of both countries.”