PROTEST DRAWS THOUSANDS
Protesters angry about possible federal immigration roundups this weekend rallied Friday night at an ICE detention facility in Aurora.
About 2,000 protesters — disturbed about possible federal immigration roundups this weekend in Denver, where an estimated 50,000 people live in the country illegally — rallied Friday night at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, calling for the closure of all such facilities in the country.
Billed as “Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Concentration Camps,” organizers of the nationwide protest aimed to bring a stop to possible roundups in Denver and other major cities across the country and to “shine a light on the horrific abuses of the Trump administration in human detention camps,” organizers said on Facebook.
Patty Lampman, of Lights for Liberty, speaking over a public address system while standing in the back of a pickup, told the masses Friday in Aurora that the protest “is a movement” that won’t be stopped “until all these camps (detention facilities) are closed and every child is free.” The crowd roared in approval.
The crowd was a diverse mix of people, including families with children and folks who brought pets. They carried flags and signs; they chanted protests.
Demonstration messages included: “Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like,” “Keep families together,” “Shut down ICE,” “Close the camps.”
Jason Hayman and his wife, Kari, of Monument, brought their four children, ages 4 to 9, to the protest, which took on the air of a boisterous rally at times.
“We feel every person has the right to dignity. We also feel that immigrants are not being given the dignity that they deserve, like everyone else,” Hayman said.
The Hayman children, as their parents did, brought signs to the protest.
Lights for Liberty, on its website, describes the organization as “a coalition of people, many of whom are mothers, dedicated to human rights, and the fundamental principle behind democracy that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and dignity.”
At the start of the protest, about 7 p.m., a splinter group of about 50 people broke off from the main group, crossing a chain-link gate and entering the ICE property. Organizers tried calling the group back, off the property and back into the public right of way, to no avail.
Bryce Downer, an immigration attorney and partner with Novo Legal, told the crowd that immigration detainees wait up to three months, sometimes longer, for a bail hearing, typically on matters that are civil, not criminal.
“This is outrageous!” Downer bellowed. The crowd agreed.
Danielle Jefferis, a clinical fellow with the civil rights clinic of the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, told the crowd that the Aurora facility holds more than 1,500 people, including children.
Jefferis described the facility as a “prison, a concentration camp, a cage” where people are “treated as criminals — animals.”
She told the crowd that families are separated here in Aurora, not just at facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Describing the federal detention of undocumented immigrants as big business, Jefferis said the system made “over $2 billion in profits in 2017.” The crowd chanted: “Shame! Shame! Shame … ”
On Friday in Denver, Mayor Michael Hancock was part of conference call with immigration advocates. Hancock said President Donald Trump is using the prospect of a nationwide immigration roundup as a political tool.
“President Trump has made a practice, and quite frankly, you all in the media have helped him to be very adept at distracting the American public and the media whenever his back is against the wall with something. Whether it’s an investigation around Russian interference, Mr. Mueller’s pending testimony before Congress, to distract by doing these very bold and blatant acts,” Hancock said. “Once again he has done it here in this situation. He has used our vulnerable immigrants and refugees who are fearing for their very livelihoods and their families to distract and make us again scurry to the other side on this issue.”
Hancock talked about how immigrants are afraid to go to courthouses to testify in criminal court or to report crimes in the first place because they fear arrest. “That makes every American unsafe, every Denverite unsafe,” he said.