WASHINGTON — Protesters gathered Saturday to support immigrant rights at rallies around the United States, denouncing President-elect Donald Trump for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and his pledges to build a wall on the US-Mexican border and to crack down on Muslims entering the country.

A standing-room-only crowd packed into a historic African-American church in downtown Washington for one of dozens of rallies around the nation.

‘‘We are not going to allow Donald Trump to bury the Statue of Liberty,’’ Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told participants in Washington. ‘‘We are a nation for all people, regardless of religion, regardless of background, regardless of who you love.’’

In Chicago, more than 1,000 people poured into a teachers’ union hall to support immigrant rights and implore each other to fight for those rights against what they fear will be a hostile Trump administration.

Ron Taylor, a pastor of a Chicago area Disciples for Christ Church and executive director of the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations, told the audience there, ‘‘Regardless of what happens in the coming days we know that good will conquer evil and we want to say to each and every one of you, you are not alone.’’

The protests mark the latest chapter in a movement that has evolved since 2006, when more than a million people took to the streets to protest a Republican-backed immigration bill that would have made it a crime to be in the country illegally.

The crowds this weekend at rallies or cultural events in Washington; Chicago; Los Angeles; San Jose, Calif.; and elsewhere, are expected to be nowhere near as big as then.

Yet the line to enter Metropolitan AME Church in Washington stretched nearly a city block. People attending included immigrants who lack permission to be in the country. Also present were elected officials, clergy, and represent­-atives of labor and women’s groups.

Participants carried signs with messages including ‘‘Resist Trump’s Hate’’ and ‘‘Tu, Yo, Todos Somos America,’’ which translates to ‘‘You, me, we all are America.’’

‘‘I stand here because I have nothing to apologize for. I am not ashamed of my status because it is a constant reminder to myself that I have something to fight for,’’ said Max Kim, 19, who was brought to the United States from South Korea when he was 6 and lacks legal permission to stay in the country.

The Washington crowd urged Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress not to undo the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, aimed at helping people like Kim who were brought to the country as children.

Michael Takada of the Japanese American Service Committee urged the Chicago audience to ‘‘disrupt the deportation machine’’ that he and others fear will ramp up under the new president. He also urged them to keep a close eye on their local police departments and speak out if they see those departments help ‘‘ICE to deport our community members.’’

Dr. Bassam Osman, chairman and cofounder of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, elicited one of the loudest cheers from the crowd when he called out the president-elect by name in one of the opening prayers. ‘‘Lord, this land is your land, it is not Trump’s land.’’

While there was plenty of cheering, there was also uneasiness and fear of what’s to come after Trump is sworn in.

Rehab Alkadi, a 31-year-old mother of a young son who came to the United States four years ago from war-torn Syria, said she doesn’t believe she can be deported because ‘‘there is a war in Syria, but who knows. It’s so scary, what Trump says,’’ she said. ‘‘He said a lot of things bad about the Muslim people.’’