Thousands expected to protest, march across Washington on May Day

Catalina Gaitán, The Seattle Times on Apr 30, 2026

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SEATTLE — Thousands of May Day protesters are expected to rally and march Friday in cities across Washington state, including Seattle, Vancouver and Yakima, in support of worker rights and to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

More than 1,000 Seattle demonstrators participated in last year’s celebration of International Workers' Day, marking the date an estimated 500,000 workers across North America went on strike May 1, 1886, to demand a legal eight-hour workday.

Partly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70s are expected to greet demonstrators at noon Friday, when they gather for a rally at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Protesters will then march to a “community fair” at another location, organizer Melissa Rubio said.

Calls for better pay and working conditions typically shape the annual protests. This year’s priority, Rubio said, will be sending government officials a “real clear message” to stop supporting or investing in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and the federal administration’s “massive deportation machine.”

“That is a clear and even louder and more deeply felt demand than it has ever been,” said Rubio, deputy director of Seattle-based immigrant rights organization OneAmerica.

This May Day also marks the first year Seattle will join U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York in a nationwide economic boycott. Labor organizers across the country are asking people to not work, shop or go to school on Friday to send a message that they won't “spend a dime or give (their) time to bosses who continue to comply with the rapidly growing authoritarian regime,” Rubio said.

For “safety purposes,” Rubio declined to describe the route Seattle’s protesters will follow or say where it ends, during a phone call Wednesday. She said participants are expected to arrive at the second location around 2 p.m., and that organizers are doing what they can to make the march accessible, including by stationing “safety and mobility teams” along the way.

Seattle Parks and Recreation spokesperson Christina Hirsch confirmed that the agency issued a permit on Wednesday for a First Amendment event on Friday at Cal Anderson Park and another site less than 2 miles away.

The Seattle Police Department did not respond Wednesday to questions.

Seattle’s May Day events have been tame in recent years compared with those the city saw each year between 2012 and 2016, when peaceful daytime demonstrations ended in clashes between black-clad protesters and police.

Workers, unions and advocacy groups faced no obstacles or interruptions when they rallied and marched through downtown streets the past two May Days, carrying signs with messages like, “Save the glaciers, abolish ICE” and “Workers run the world.”

On Friday, protesters across Washington will call for Tacoma’s ICE detention center to be shut down and for the state to divest from GEO Group, the Florida-based private company running the center, Rubio said. Their demands will also include barring ICE agents from this summer’s World Cup events in Seattle and blocking the state from sharing its licensing data with U.S. border authorities.

Friday’s event is open to anyone hoping to “organize for a better world and a way out of the current political, economic and social crises,” Rubio said.

“Our tax dollars must be redirected from the terrorization of everyday working people and back into the things that everyday working people need to be able to survive and hopefully thrive in this country,” Rubio said.

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