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'No Kings' protesters carried their message at Miami rally. Take a look

Devoun Cetoute and Milena Malaver, Miami Herald on

Published in News & Features

MIAMI —Yes, they chanted and sang. But for the protesters who packed Tropical Park on Saturday for a “No Kings” rally, their signs carried the main message.

“No Kings. No Felons,” read one. “Dump Don,” read another.

Others signs were just as blunt when it came to President Donald Trump or ICE, and spiced with an F-word or two.

The Tropical Park rally, which coordinators said drew more than 4,000 people, was the largest of several in South Florida. They were among hundreds of others across the state and the country.

Saturday’s main protest in West Miami-Dade also featured a stage, a choir and people lined up along Bird Road chanting and singing as they held their signs.

Speakers from local protest groups took the stage to take on Trump. Among them was Ana Navarro, a political analyst frequently featured on CNN, and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Raskin energized the crowd with a classic Miami greeting: “Hola, Miami; Hola, Florida!” He started his speech in Spanish.

“You are not our king, and we will never be your servants,” he said in Spanish about Trump. “We don’t have kings here.”

Navarro shouted similar sentiments to the crowd.

“You know what’s going to happen in November? There is going to be a change in Washington because Americans are sick and tired of Republicans .... There is going to be people that investigate the s--- that needs to be investigated.”

 

No counter protesters supporting Trump, except for the occasional car angry honk and middle finger, showed at the “No Kings” event.

Cindy Lerner, co-leader of the Indivisible Action Team Miami-Dade and former mayor of Pinecrest, said the group could not return to the Torch of Friendship because of this weekend’s Ultra Music Festival.

Among the hundreds in attendance was 27-year-old Adrian Aviles, holding a large American flag swaying in the wind from a PVC pipe.

“It’s time to voice my opinion and be a part of where I think I belong on this side of the fence,” he said. “I felt I needed to come because of what’s going on with Iran and the recent imperialism that we seem to be enforcing with Nicaragua and Venezuela, some of these countries that deserve their own democracy and not us stepping in and being the authoritarians.”

Rhoane Latvis, 82, has seen many presidents come and ago, supporting her fair share and not agreeing with others. But she said Trump’s actions in his first and second terms led her to join a protest rally for the first time in her life.

“Trump is the first president that wants to be a king and I really don’t think that’s right,” she said. “We got our independence in 1776, and we are going to be 250 years old. I want us, this great country, to stay independent.”

Javier Del Rio, 35, walked Tropical Park in his old military uniform that he has since modified with flowers woven into his beret and painted motifs and mantras on his back, one of which read, “I will fight no more forever.”

Del Rio served in the Marine Corps reserves for three years and transferred to active duty in the Army for six years. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2017 for nine months and said he has worked hard to “recover the pieces of myself that I sacrificed along the way.”

He felt it was paramount that people come out Saturday to protest with their messages.


©2026 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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