Protesting Donald Trump's Presidential Inauguration: Celebrities Join Thousands Outside Of Trump Hotel In New York To Protest

Jim Curtis Smith has been fearful about losing his health insurance ever since Donald Trump was elected president. The 56-year-old from Bayonne, New Jersey, has type II diabetes and high blood pressure and was worried Trump would make good on some of his more prominent campaign promises, including repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare.

Feeling helpless on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, Smith made his way to nearby New York City to join a group of liberal A-list celebrities at a rally to “build our own movement” against the incoming presidential administration, as event host and Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio declared Thursday evening.

“I am covered as of right now because of Obamacare but who knows that is going is going to happen as of last week or whenever he wants to take his pen and make an executive order to dismiss it,” Smith, who is studying to be a home healthcare aid, told International Business Times.

That sentiment of uncertainty was not confined to just Smith. Speaking to a crowd of thousands of like-minded protesters chanting "not my president" outside of the Trump International Hotel near the southwest corner of Central Park, de Blasio vowed to fight against certain presidential proposals Trump has floated, such initiating mass immigration deportations and replacing Obama’s signature healthcare law.

“Right now here in New York and all over the country people are getting together to sign up their fellow Americans for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act because it is still the law of the land in this country,” de Blasio said of Obamacare. "That’s a way of making sure more of our residents get health insurance. But also, every additional person who signs up provides that much more strength for why it has to be kept.”

Because overhauling Obamacare would result in 18 million Americans losing their health insurance, de Blasio urged every New Yorker to enroll in the “Get Covered NYC” program, which aims to provide 50,000 more New Yorkers with affordable healthcare coverage in 2017.

De Blasio was followed onstage by the Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, who joined de Blasio in calling on mayors throughout the country to join Boston Mayor Martin Walsh in creating programs like MassHealth to make sure as many people could sign up for healthcare insurance as possible. Hodges said repealing Obamacare would disproportionally affect the poor, minorities, people with disabilities and those suffering with mental health issues and addictions. Twenty million Americans have been provided health insurance from the Affordable Care Act as of 2015.

Trump’s hardline stance on immigration was also a prominent topic of discussion at the rally, as well as one that resonated with an audience that included film industry stars Michael Moore, Robert DeNiro and Mark Ruffalo.

Moore urged people to call their representatives in Congress and in the Senate to act against any plans the federal government might make to deport immigrants. He additionally called on everyone in the crowd to sign up if Trump creates a registry for Muslim-Americans, shouting, “We are all Muslim.”

“When they come to New York to take our Mexican neighbors out of here whose willing to stand in front of the George Washington Bridge and say 'You are not going to do that' peacefully and nonviolently?” Moore asked the crowd.

With concerns like that in mind, de Blasio also encouraged all New Yorkers to sign up for "IDNYC" program, which is an identification program allowing anyone in the city to receive municipal benefits regardless of immigration status. De Blasio also urged other mayors to invest in organizations helping immigrant families. New York City spent $30 million on services for immigrants in 2017 on groups like “ We Are New York” that offers free English language classes, and Make the Road New York, a non-profit organization in Brooklyn that informs Latino immigrants about their civil rights and their legal access to health care, public education and policy innovations.

“Regardless of who you are and where you come from you are a New Yorker and we respect you.” de Blasio said.

Leslie Post, 59, said she traveled to the rally from her home in suburban Philadelphia to represent all women; a group that repeatedly felt Trump’s campaign rhetoric attacked them. But Post, a veterinary technician, said she was equally, if not more concerned with the fact that her son’s boyfriend is from Mexico and is at risk of being deported once Trump becomes president.

“I fear that she is going to be sent back and it will break my son’s heart,” Post told IBT. “She has a science degree but works as a waitress because she is not legally here. She comes to the U.S. on a travel visa and then can only stay for six months.”

Keri Tietjen, a writer and photographer from New Jersey, said she was especially nervous about Trump because her son identifies as bi-sexual and has Asperger's syndrome. She said she admired Mayor de Blasio for his outspoken critiques of Trump's campaign promises and hoped the rally would make it so Trump did not feel “welcome in his own city” because his campaign pledge to deport immigrants has made it so people don’t feel welcome in their own country.

“Because I have a [bisexual] son with Asperger's I have a lot of concerns about what is going to happen and I think that he is a real threat to we as women, as LGBT, as people with disabilities, and the freedoms we have,” said Tietjen.

Steve Dingledine, 49, who teaches fifth grade in Washington, D.C., said when he asked his students in class Wednesday about Trump’s incoming presidency, three-quarters of them said they felt scared about what was going to happen to themselves and their parents. He said he traveled up to New York City to hear de Blasio.

“It was time for Americans to come together and show signs that they were going hold Trump accountable for his actions," Dingledine said.

“Ten-year-olds should not be fearful when a new president is being sworn in. Some feel very fearful not just about themselves but about other communities --Hispanics, Muslims and other groups -- that are under threat of deportation.”