Xochil Pasillas became overwhelmed with emotion when asked why she decided to join several hundred protesters Monday at California’s Capitol building in Sacramento in a demonstration against President Donald Trump and his administration.

She remembers Trump’s first term in the White House, but Pasillas said this time it’s much worse. Her relationships are severed with co-workers, friends and even some family members who voted and still support Trump’s policies. She said she can’t talk to them anymore.

Passillas, a Sacramento resident, is a first-generation U.S. citizen with parents who immigrated from Mexico. She said Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportation is frightening, because he wasn’t hiding it this time. She feels the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement is targeting Latinos in the United States, and she wanted to speak up on Monday.

“He’s trying to tear up families,” Pasillas said. “Instead of making America great, it’s tearing us apart.”

No longer willing to stay quiet, Pasillas held up a protest sign with a cartoon figure of Trump in a black-and-white striped jail inmate uniform with the message “You will never find justice in a world where criminals make the rules.”

Last year, Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes after a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Pasillas joined several hundred people in Monday’s protest on the west side of the Capitol, a demonstration that was among a planned nationwide day of protests against the Trump Administration. The grassroots organizations 50501 Movement and Political Revolution partnered to organize the nationwide protests, Newsweek reported.

Large demonstrations on Presidents Day under the banner “Not My Presidents Day” were planned in cities such as New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Other protests were planned in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.

Protesters against the Trump Administration gathered outside Placer County’s Historic Courthouse in Auburn with signs that said “Stop the MAGA facsicts” and “Dump Elon Immediately,” a reference to Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer and billionaire Elon Musk.

Harsh criticism and calls to get rid of Musk were also seen on many protest signs Monday at the Sacramento protest. Trump appointed Musk to head the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE. Last week, Trump ordered Musk and DOGE to implement a “workforce optimization initiative” and drastically reduce staffing in federal agencies, while freezing hiring to only “essential positions.”

“We did not vote for this,” Kim Coleman Berger shouted into a megaphone Monday on the west Capitol steps.

Coleman Berger was at the Sacramento protest with about 200 members of a Facebook group called Leadership Badassery. She said they started the group in November shortly after the presidential election that placed Trump in power for his second term after losing his re-election bid in 2020 and remaining out of office for four years.

“It’s important that we all show up,” Coleman Burger said. “We’re all under attack now.”

Along with participating in protests, she said the Facebook group works to connect people with community organizations that offer help to elderly people, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community. Coleman Berger said there’s a nationwide planned boycott on Feb. 28 called Financial Blackout Day, where those opposing the Trump administration will not buy anything on that day.

“That’s the thing they’ll notice. All they care about is money,” Coleman Berger said. “They don’t care about families. They don’t care about children.”

Jeanne Scherer of Solano County said the Trump Administration has destroyed the “checks and balances” of the American democracy, and opposition against his policies need to rise up.

“It’s unconstitutional. If we don’t speak up, we don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves,” Scherer said holding a protest sign with the message “Democracy dies in silence.”

Deno Marcum said he wasn’t expecting such a large crowd Monday at the Capitol. He was there earlier this year to join others in demonstration to support and defend the rights of transgender people, but he said Monday’s crowd much larger and still growing.

Wearing an LGBTQ pride flag as a cape, the Sacramento resident said the rainbow-colored symbol is a sign of acceptance of all people. Marcum said he’s just worried who Trump will target next?

“We’ve got a felon trying to lead us, and it’s not working out from the start,” Marcum said of Trump. “I’ve never heard of a government run by someone who wants to destroy it.”

Dora Garcia of San Jose drove to the Capitol on Monday, picking up her sisters in Modesto and Sacramento along the way, to join the protest against Trump’s deportation of immigrants. She said she was happy to see so many people from different backgrounds uniting for the same cause.

“It’s a reflection of what it should be in the White House and Congress,” Garcia said about the protesters gathered in Sacramento. “But it’s a bunch of old white men making the decisions for the rest of us.”

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