A rally billed by organizers as the first “mass deportation rally” in the country is set for the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers Saturday, headlined by former U.S. Border Patrol official Greg Bovino. A separate march opposing the rally is also planned for the same day.
Who is speaking
Bovino oversaw President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Amid backlash over the deaths of two U.S. citizens during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Bovino was removed from leading efforts in the city in January. On a recent podcast, Bovino called the rally an important first step.
"There’s a lot of opposition to that rally. It’s the first mass deportation rally ever held in the United States and hopefully everything goes off good there," Bovino said during the The Tyler Henderson Show. "You know, everything starts with a spark."
The event will also feature video appearances from state officials Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith and Attorney General Todd Rokita. Indiana State Rep. Jim Lucas (R-Seymour) is expected to be in attendance. Anthony Rubin, founder of the outlet Muckraker, is also a speaker.
Why Indiana, why now
Indiana’s Republican Party supports the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and aligned state policies in the process. This year lawmakers passed Senate Enrolled Act 76, known as the FAIRNESS Act, that requires schools, local governments, police and sheriff's offices to comply with federal immigration enforcement.
The rally aims to call for state and federal lawmakers to take enforcement further.
Who is organizing it
Save Heritage Indiana co-founder and Executive Director Daniel Poynter organized the rally. The group is an all-volunteer organization that Poynter says advocates for reduced immigration, including a moratorium on new arrivals and the mass deportation of people in the country illegally. Poynter co-founded the group in 2025 with Nathan Roberts. Roberts now works for Turning Point Action, the political arm of Turning Point USA.
Poynter hopes the event kicks off more pro-deportation rallies across the country.
“We’re giving people an opportunity to be the first and to get on stage and to direct history and not just be a participant, a tail on the dog, but to actually direct the future of Indiana,” Poynter told WFYI. “That’s very meaningful to me. That people have a sense of agency and they’re not just beaten down.”
He said he wants the rally to ignite and mobilize people.
“There are so many people that are angry, and it’s just like smoldering,” Poynter said. “What I would really like to do is to fan the flames and get that smoldering brush fire to become a roaring inferno, so that it gets turned into action.”
Action for Poynter would be seeing laws being enforced and voting for lawmakers who will do that.
Poynter understands there are people who don’t agree with him and those attending the mass deportation rally, and they are organizing their own protests in the city. He doesn’t expect to change anyone's opinion but asks that people not dismiss him or mischaracterize those attending as "a bunch of haters."
The location of the rally was not made public. Poynter said the event is sold out but declined to say how many people will be in attendance. To attend the event, applicants had to be approved by organizers before being notified where the event would take place.
Poynter said he plans to release a video of the event.
The counter-protest
A march opposing the rally, called the Hoosier Hospitality March, is also set for Saturday in Fishers.
Karen Byrd, a volunteer coordinator with Indivisible Central Indiana, said the march is part of more planned events throughout the year.
“It’s basically raising awareness to people here in Indiana who may not even be aware that we have deportation and detention centers here in Indiana that are holding immigrants, and to kind of alert everybody that there is resistance that they can take part in.”
The march will start at 3 p.m. at Holland Park and make its way to the Fishers Municipal Center. A vigil will be held for those who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and enforcement actions. The event is scheduled to end by 6 p.m.
Other organizations taking part in the march include several Indivisible community chapters, Indy Resistance, Somos Latinos, Action Neighbors, Indiana Organizing Project and Voices 4 Democracy.
Byrd said she expects two types of people to show up to the rally: those who fully align with the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and those who are more curious or driven by concerns like crime or their own sense of American values.
“I would advise them to think about what brought them to an event like this,” Byrd said. “Think about what they envision for the future of the country and for the future of their children and the world, and ask them if this mass deportation rally is really in line with that.”
Contact WFYI All Things Considered newscaster and reporter Samantha Horton at shorton@wfyi.org or on Signal at SamHorton.05.
WFYI education editor Eric Weddle contributed to this story.
