March and Lafayette Square rally culminates multi-day Justice Journey where SEIU members traveled through historic civil rights sites to Louisiana, protested at detention centers
NEW ORLEANS, LA – SEIU service and care workers joined by over a dozen local and national partner organizations, faith leaders, and local allies will lead a mass march and rally in New Orleans on Tuesday, calling for an end to the Trump administration’s brutal ICE raids, the release of immigrant workers unjustly detained in Louisiana and across the country, and a future where working people of every race and background can thrive.
“Workers of every race have always faced systems designed to strip away our rights, divide our communities, and criminalize our existence, all while politicians and corporations profit,” said April Verrett, President of SEIU. “Immigration detention and mass incarceration are two sides of the same system of control, and we’ve seen this hateful playbook before. We’re standing together in a powerful, united resistance to reject the politics of cruelty and greed, where some think they can send our families, friends, and coworkers into for-profit prisons in Louisiana, a place marked by generations of suffering and economic exploitation. SEIU members across the country and across the South are here to say enough is enough.”
The coalition will rally under the banner of “Freedom. Family. Justice.” amid escalating attacks on immigrant communities and constitutional rights including the freedom to speak out, freedom to assemble, and due process.
The coalition is also calling on members of Congress in Louisiana and nationwide to vote NO on a federal budget that would fund expanded ICE raids and tax breaks for billionaires while gutting healthcare and hurting working families.
Coalition partners include SouthEast Dignity Not Detention Coalition, American Civil Liberties Union, Jobs with Justice, ACLU-Louisiana, RFK Human Rights, Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, Louisiana AFL-CIO, Indivisible NOLA, LA AID, the Labor Force, NAACP, National Immigration Project, Palestinian Youth Movement New Orleans, Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast, Voice of the Experienced, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, SEIU, Step Up Louisiana, ISLA, Unión Migrante, UNITE HERE Local 23, Workers United, and more.
Tuesday’s action will cap off a multi-day Justice Journey where hundreds of SEIU members and their allies from the North, South, East, and West have all traveled through historic civil rights sites to Louisiana—where “detention alley” has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s escalating cruelty and anti-immigrant agenda.
EVENT DETAILS
WHAT: ‘Freedom. Family. Justice.’ mass march and rally demanding end to ICE detentions and release of unjustly detained workers
WHO:
Coalition of local Louisiana and national organizations, advocates, leaders
SEIU International President April Verrett
Service and care workers
Faith leaders
WHEN: Tuesday, July 1 at 5:30pm CT
WHERE: March begins at the corner of Convention Center Blvd and Poydras Street (Spanish Plaza) and ends at Lafayette Square
To RSVP or schedule interviews, contact Shwetha Ganesh, shwetha.ganesh@berlinrosen.com or María Ponce, maria.ponce@seiu.org.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND
The march and rally in New Orleans is the culmination of SEIU’s Justice Journey, representing a powerful coalition of working people from across industries coast-to-coast who are taking action at this critical inflection point for the country. Buses from Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Durham, and Columbia journeyed from their hometowns through key cities that witnessed pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement and today’s ongoing fights for justice. The bus journey ends in Louisiana, where immigrant detention and incarceration have become deeply embedded in the region’s economy.
Louisiana’s for-profit detention centers have become a focal point of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement cruelty. Mahmoud Khalil was unjustly detained at a private detention center in Jena. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was held in Louisiana before his illegal deportation to an infamous El Salvadoran prison. Countless more remain in ICE detention centers in Louisiana and across the country, including in many of the same private prisons that have caged generations of Black men.
Louisiana has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and now that same carceral infrastructure is being weaponized by the Trump administration against immigrants, disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous.
