Photo: Anti-ICE demonstrators marched through the streets of Denver after a rally at the Colorado Capitol on June 10, 2025. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
This story by Chase Woodruff appeared on Colorado Newsline on June 10, 2025.
For the second day in a row, Coloradans protested against the mass deportation campaign being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country and an escalating military crackdown by President Donald Trump’s administration on anti-ICE demonstrators in Los Angeles.
A crowd of more than 1,000 people Tuesday evening gathered on the lawn of the Colorado Capitol and along Lincoln Street near Civic Center Park in Denver for an emergency “ICE Out” rally organized by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
“This is more than a protest. It’s a call to defend our future,” Raquel Lane-Arellano, communications manager for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said in a press release. “The Trump administration is trying to turn our government into a weapon — unleashing the military on immigrants, workers, and anyone who won’t bow to their agenda.”
A breakaway crowd of hundreds, mostly younger people, then marched south from the Capitol, shutting down traffic on Broadway and Lincoln Street. The marchers were met by a line of law enforcement officers including Denver police and Colorado State Patrol near the interchange between Broadway and Interstate 25. The crowd gradually thinned out as police warned demonstrators they would be denied access to the highway. Officers in riot gear deployed chemical munitions to disperse the crowd after a standoff lasting about 30 minutes.
Other protesters remained at the Capitol throughout Tuesday evening’s demonstration.
“We are here right now because our neighbors are being attacked left and right,” Nayda Benitez, an advocate with CIRC, told the crowd. “I’m a proud immigrant. I could not be here without my mom, without my family.”
A Denver Police Department spokesperson told Newsline as of 9pm Tuesday that she was not aware of any protest-related arrests.
Anti-ICE protests continued for the fifth consecutive day in Los Angeles, where Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday night announced the imposition of an 8 p.m. curfew. Trump has ordered a detachment of 700 U.S. Marines and thousands of federalized National Guard troops to deploy to L.A. over the objections of state and local leaders, the first such move by a U.S. president since 1965. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sued to block the deployments, which he said “crossed a red line.” Trump on Monday suggested Newsom, whom he did not accuse of any crime, should be arrested.
The Denver demonstrations followed a march on Monday to the gates of the ICE detention center in Aurora, where a daily average of more than 1,100 people are detained as they await deportation or other immigration proceedings.
Splintering demonstrations
Shortly after 6 p.m., as the size of the crowd at the Capitol swelled, a breakaway group chanting and bearing signs with anti-ICE slogans blocked an intersection at Lincoln and 14th streets.
Much of the crowd then marched south from the Capitol along Lincoln Street before crossing to Broadway. As the crowd marched, Denver police continued to shut down multiple intersections nearby but did not engage protesters or order them to disperse.
“No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state,” the crowd chanted. Despite causing traffic to back up in several locations, they were met largely with supportive honks and cheers from drivers.
“Come back for music afterward, people,” a proprietor at a bar and lounge on Broadway shouted to the crowd as it passed.
Javier Calzada, a demonstrator wielding a flagpole that flew both the Mexican and American flags, told Newsline he had immigrated from Mexico 27 years ago, and was on the scene Tuesday to “keep the peace.”
“We don’t support the attacks on our community,” Calzada said. “We’re here to protect ourselves.”
Many marchers began to turned back as the demonstration crossed Alameda Avenue. A smaller crowd continued south on Broadway until participants were stopped by law enforcement officers in tactical gear north of the I-25 interchange, where police broadcast a public-address announcement warning protesters to turn back from the highway and threatening the use of “chemical munitions.”
About 30 minutes later, a Denver police officer, citing the protest’s blocking of a roadway, ordered the crowd to disperse. Shortly afterwards, police deployed several canisters of chemical munitions into the crowd, and eventually fired several volleys of chemical rounds from pepper ball guns. The last remnants of the crowd departed as police advanced north on Broadway just before 8:30 p.m.
In an advisory issued just after 9 p.m., the Colorado State Patrol warned drivers to avoid downtown Denver because of “large crowds and possible unlawful road closures.”
An expanding deportation program
Tensions have risen in Denver, L.A. and other cities around the country in recent weeks following a series of moves by the Trump administration to expand its mass deportation efforts. In his second term, Trump has vowed to deport all of the estimated 12.2 million people living in the country without permanent legal status.
ICE agents have begun arresting individuals and families outside federal immigration courts, reversing a longstanding policy that avoided such arrests so as not to deter immigrants from going through lawful court proceedings. A series of high-profile raids at restaurants and other workplaces have followed in the wake of Trump adviser Stephen Miller reportedly pressuring the agency to broaden the scope of its enforcement operations.
“Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” Miller asked ICE leaders on May 20, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Trump administration on Saturday spuriously described recent ICE operations in L.A. as targeting “the worst of the worst,” a claim belied by the agency’s raids of a downtown clothing wholesaler and a Home Depot in an L.A. suburb, both of which drew protests and led to the initial clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement this weekend. Federal agents in tactical gear shot tear gas and flash-bang grenades and arrested dozens of protesters they accused of obstructing the operations, including union leader David Huerta, who was charged by federal prosecutors Monday with a felony count of conspiracy to impede an officer.
The share of people in ICE detention with no criminal record had risen to nearly 25% as of June 1, a sharp uptick from 6% in January, according to the American Immigration Council.
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.