The protestors want the government’s “hands off” a lot of things — immigrants, veterans’ health care, LGBTQ-plus rights, social security, schools, women, penguins, the First Amendment, the climate, Canada, Greenland and the Constitution. Signs primarily focused on President Donald Trump and his billionaire advisor Elon Musk.

As they marched, supporters driving by honked and waved peace signs. Some opponents did burnouts and revved their engines, yelled “Trump!” and two kids on a scooter flipped the protestors off and rode through the crowd. Several protestor signs mentioned getting into “good trouble.” The protest caused mild traffic disruptions, but protesters consistently stopped at crosswalks to let vehicle traffic through.

Estimates from organizers counting heads at several points along the route ranged from 550 to 800-plus attendees. The line of protestors — more than a quarter-mile long — stretched longer than the length of Church Street from River Street to the intersection with Main Street.

Everyone seemed to be there for different but connected reasons — spending cuts, the arrests of student protestors, illegal deportation of migrants, stopping aid to Ukraine and tariffs.

Helen Demong and Dorothy Waldt walk in a crowd of hundreds of protestors down Broadway on Saturday at one of hundreds of “Hands Off” rallies around the country. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Martha Spear said passion and fear are what drove her to protest.

“I think it’s important to fight for decency in these incoherent and cruel times,” Newt Roberge-Pika of Lake Placid said.

Rev. Ken Hitch of St. Eustace Episcopal Church in Lake Placid said he was there out of “moral conviction,” to overcome the fear and hate some are trying to instill in the nation.

“If any of us are suffering, then all of us are suffering,” he said.

Saranac Laker Sasha Van Cott said she is horrified by the direction of the country. She wanted to show the world that the U.S. is not unified behind Trump and show people locally that Saranac Lake is an accepting place.

Newt Roberge-Pika of Lake Placid sings the hymn “We Shall Not Be Moved” in Riverside Park on Saturday at one of hundreds of “Hands Off” rallies around the country. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“I love Saranac Lake so much,” Van Cott said. “Our community is so amazing. I’m so proud of us.”

The line of protestors was so long it split into multiple strings several times as protestors stopped for vehicle traffic. Each string had someone in it leading chants of “This is what democracy looks like” or “We the people, defend the Constitution.”

“I haven’t been at a protest this big since the Vietnam War,” Saranac Laker Rich Shapiro said.

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‘Hands off’

Hundreds of protestors turned out on Saturday to Saranac Lake’s “Hands Off” rally, one of hundreds around the country that day. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

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Musk, the richest man on Earth and advisor to Trump, is leading the new Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with cutting $2 trillion in spending.

Adirondack Voters for Change President Kary Johnson said these cuts are to pay for tax breaks for the rich, and that they threaten families, professions and communities. She said it’s an important time to go back to the Constitution and remember that the government works for the people.

“These cuts are not about fiscal responsibility,” Johnson said. “Unelected billionaires with corporate interests are being handed power.”

She said this is betraying the values that this country was founded on.

Martha Spear and Rev. Ken Hitch hold signs on River Street with hundreds of protestors on Saturday at one of hundreds of “Hands Off” rallies around the country. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“To them, our lives are spreadsheets and our suffering is acceptable collateral,” she said.

Harrietstown Supervisor Jordanna Mallach, who has served with the Army for more than 22 years and has been deployed twice, stood on a bench in Riverside Park, near the Veterans’ Walk memorial, and called up all veterans attending the event. She spoke against the Trump administration’s plans to to cut more than 80,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which serves around 9.1 million veterans.

“The VA saves lives,” she said.

Mallach said she personally knows how important the VA’s healthcare services are, saying a Syracuse VA saved her life with emergency surgery for a service-related spinal injury. She quoted George Washington on how a nation will be judged by how it treats its veterans.

William Martin said in the next nine years, the U.S. will spend $753 billion on nuclear weapons. This money should be given to the youth, he said.

Hundreds of protestors turned out on Saturday to Saranac Lake’s “Hands Off” rally, one of hundreds around the country that day. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Will Roth, who was waving a large American flag, said he was protesting all the things that the Trump administration is doing, which he said are going against what makes America, America. While there are many things he cited, he said the tariffs are personally affecting him the most. He said they’ve created a poor attitude toward Canadians. As a rock and ice climbing guide, he said he’s already lost $13,000 in business this summer season from Canadians cancelling their trips — protesting the tariffs by not traveling here.

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Arrests of students sparked protest

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Forrest Law, who co-organized the event, said he did it because he cares about his community and he doesn’t like what Trump and his “billionaire allies” are doing with the country. One day, he and fellow co-organizer Virginia Ruhland-Mauhs were at work, looking at the news and said to each other, “We should organize a protest.” They heard about the nationwide “Hands Off” protests planned for April 5 and got resources from the anti-fascist nonprofit Indivisible.

Ruhland-Mauhs said, for her, it was the detaining of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that sparked her desire to hold a protest. Khalil was taken from his apartment on March 8. When ICE agents told Khalil’s attorney his student visa was being revoked, they were informed he is a permanent resident with a green card and said they were revoking that, too. Khalil has not been charged with a crime. The reason for his arrest was stated as him allegedly being “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.” During the Columbia protests, Khalil said there is “no place for antisemitism” in the protests.

Ruhland-Mauhs said the threats to free speech pose a concern for her. She encouraged people to get involved in a local group to care for their community.

“Everyone who is really paying attention is seeing how Donald Trump is clearly anti-free speech,” Saranac Lake resident Charlotte Lomino said. “If we don’t start resisting now, then when will we? How long are we going to wait? How many people are going to be illegally kidnapped and sent to prison camps?”

Lomino said, as a transgender woman, she’s on the first line of those whose freedoms are being targeted. While she said it feels good to gather and protest, more needs to be done, pointing out that every civil rights movement has relied on civil disobedience.

Krystal Ford said she became an American citizen in 2018 because she wanted to vote and didn’t want to be deported. A Canadian who was living on a green card for 10 years at the time, she said, because she wanted to participate as an activist, she didn’t want to give the government an excuse to deport her. Seeing ICE arresting protesters now is exactly what she feared.

Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk was taken off the street in Boston by plainclothes ICE agents who put her in an unmarked SUV. Ozturk’s student visa was revoked without her knowledge. She has not been charged with a crime and was detained by the federal government for co-writing a pro-Palestinian article in her student newspaper. ICE claims she supports Hamas.

Ford said people with visas and green cards are worried about the government detaining people without charging them with crimes because of their activism. She said this will increase unless opposed.

“Do not let them take our empathy, our humanity, our power and our free speech,” Ford said.

Dana Fast sat beneath a sign that read “I survived the Holocaust. I don’t want another one.” Fast said she was 8 years old, living in Warsaw, Poland, when the Holocaust started. She lived in the ghettos for two years and was eventually smuggled out of the country. She hopes to not see what she saw in her childhood happen again.

“We need to stand up and speak up,” Fast said. She wrote about her experiences in a book titled “My Nine Lives.”

Her daughter, Yvona, said seeing ICE arresting immigrants without identifying themselves reminds her of her mother’s stories of the Nazis in World War II.

Organizers said they anticipate more of these rallies in the future, unless things change. The rally had way more people than the organizers expected.

“I think it’s amazing to see so many people who want to see their world improved,” Law said.

Dana Fast, who survived the Holocaust in Poland as a child, attended Saranac Lake’s “Hands Off” rally on Saturday, one of hundreds around the country that day. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Nadia Geel and Felix Langdon wrote their own chant at the Saranac Lake “Hands Off” protest on Saturday: “M. A. G. A. MAGA. Meatheads are governing America!” (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Marie and John Cogar walk in a crowd of hundreds of protestors down Church Street on Saturday at one of hundreds of “Hands Off” rallies around the country. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Laurie and Frank Socolow walk in a crowd of hundreds of protestors down Church Street on Saturday at one of hundreds of “Hands Off” rallies around the country. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Sam Brooks and Maureen Mooney from Saranac Lake carry a flag down Main Street on Saturday at one of hundreds of “Hands Off” rallies around the country. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)