Thousands March Through Seattle In Protest Of Trump's Refugee Ban

SEATTLE, WA - A crowd of several thousand gathered at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle Sunday night to protest recent executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on refugees and immigrants.

The rally was set to begin at 5 p.m. at Westlake, but crowds had gathered well before then. The crowds grew quickly after 5 p.m. as speakers like Gov. Jay Inslee, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Mayor Ed Murray, Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, and Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib, gave speeches.

At its height, there appeared to be several thousand at the rally. Westlake Park was full, and crowds spilled out onto 4th Avenue and up and down Pine Street between 3rd and 5th avenues.

According to Seattle police, the protesters were supposed to march west along Pine Street, and then south along 1st Avenue, looping around downtown and back to Westlake. But close to 7 p.m., a large group of protesters began marching south down 4th Avenue. Meantime, another large group marched north toward South Lake Union.

The group that marched south down 4th Avenue wound through downtown, and eventually marched through First Hill, Capitol Hill, and ended up at the ballfields at Cal Anderson Park. Although the protesters stopped traffic along the way, the marchers were peaceful. Police rode alongside them on bicycles, and blocked them from entering on-ramps to I-5.

Once the march reached Cal Anderson Park, the protesters gathered in a circle and listened to speeches and anecdotes from other protesters.

The protesters called for a moment of silence for the six people who were shot to death in an attack at a mosque in Quebec City. The shooting was reported just minutes before the protesters reached Cal Anderson.

Emma Kaplan, from the group Refusefascism.org, asked the protesters to raise their fists in the air and repeat, "In the name of humanity, we refuse a fascist America!"

On the other side of town, protesters had marched to the intersection of Mercer and Westlake Avenue and closed down the busy intersection. While there, they chanted and played music while sitting in the intersection.

By 9 p.m., the crowds were dwindling. Protesters who were gathered at Mercer Street marched through the South Lake Union neighborhood, and then returned to Westlake Park. By around 10 p.m., a few hundred protesters remained at Westlake.

Images via Patch.com