AURORA | Cars lined the street as music filled the air, and hundreds gathered outside the GEO Group’s privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora.
The Monday event was attended by dozens of community organizations, elected officials, clergy members and musicians, and was a defiant call for justice, unity and the protection of immigrant rights.
“We want to create a space where we can carry it together, where we know we’re not alone because we’re all gonna have to do things we’ve never done before,” Jennifer Piper, an organizer for American Friends Service Committee, said.
The afternoon and evening rally was planned before the recent increases in ICE funding under President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which slashes programs like Medicaid while allocating billions toward immigration enforcement and detention over the next four years.
Event planners estimated that about 600 people attended the event during the six hours it ran.
The timing of the bill and the planned rally was energizing, planners said.
Trump administration officials and local congressional Republicans say the 2024 presidential election was a referendum on immigration round-ups, and voters heartily approve of the ramped up enforcement. Recent national polling paints a much more ambivalent electorate as the execution of the Trump mass-deportation plan has rolled out.
“At this moment, there are over 56,000 immigrants currently detained across our country,” said V Reeves of Housekeys Action Network Denver. “And this administration is looking to more than double that number to 125,000. No more, we say. ICE out of Colorado.”
The day of action brought together a complete and diverse community to oppose what they describe as unjust immigration enforcement and the exploitation of detained immigrants for corporate profit.
As attendees picketed and sang, children painted butterflies to place in detention center windows as a symbol of freedom and transformation. Organizers said their previously-planned project now takes on even greater urgency.
“Hopelessness is the goal,” Reeves told the crowd. “Inaction is the goal. So we must recognize this, reason with it, and fight on.”
Piper and Brandon Gehrke-Quintanilla, co-founder of Aurora Unidos CSO, said the Monday event was only the beginning. They plan to continue organizing and building coalitions to increase pressure on ICE and Colorado lawmakers. Piper warned that the new federal funding could create a powerful immigration force that acts more like a military force, unlike anything the U.S. has seen before, impacting both immigrants and citizens alike.
“I think we have more areas of commonality than we have differences,” Piper said. “We might not all agree on the solution or how to get there, but broadly, Americans are concerned about the rich getting richer and others progressively getting poorer.”
One surprise visit during the event came from a FaceTime call with long-time local immigrant rights leader Jeanette Vizguerra, whose case remains a central concern for the movement. Vizguerra is currently being held in the Aurora ICE facility the group was protesting next to.
“Love has no borders,” Vizguerra told the crowd. “We must keep taking care of each other, protecting each other as a community. If we come together, we can navigate this. We can work through this.”
Attendees chanted to free Vizguerra, along with demanding the closure of the Aurora GEO facility and adequate food and medical care for all detainees.
Several Democratic lawmakers joined the protest, including state Senators Julie Gonzales, Mike Weissman, and Lisa Cutter, as well as state Representatives Mandy Lindsay and Lorena Garcia. Others, such as Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. John Hickenlooper, Rep. Gabe Evans and Rep. Diana DeGette, were absent, which activists and fellow legislators pointed out.
“I’m very proud of the work that we’ve already done to ensure that the GEO detention facility is subject to inspections from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment,” Gonzales said.
Weissman said he was happy to see the turnout, calling it a powerful response to “the immoral and hateful anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration.”
“We know the Trump administration will continue to lie about immigrants and immigration, despite the cost of their policies on families or our economy,” Weissman said. “That’s why my colleagues and I in the state legislature will continue to promote policies that prevent the federal government from commandeering limited state resources.”
Gonzales said she is also frustrated with the way ICE operates and how it makes their legislative jobs more difficult.
“ICE regularly obfuscates facts and twists the truth,” she said.
The event was held in a public park adjacent to the detention center at 3130 Oakland St., a space organizers say belongs to the people, not GEO Group or ICE.
“This is a park,” said Piper, gesturing to the gathering. “This belongs to the people of Aurora. This does not belong to GEO. We should be able to gather in our parks together.”
Organizers hoped the event would serve as a symbol to highlight the importance of building trust and connection, particularly for those who feel abandoned by political systems.
“We have nobody else coming to save us,” said Gehrke-Quintanilla. “We have to fight for our rights as immigrants and as people, as community members in Aurora. We didn’t ask for ICE either, and we don’t need to be paying for GEO. There’s so much we need to push back, change, and transform.”
The day concluded with performances by local artists and bands, including the Flobots, Izcalli, 2MX2, Yuzo Nieto of the Pinkhawks, Mirai Taiko, Laura Goldhamer, Notes of Dissent, Wheelchair Sports Camp, and Gora Gora Orkestar. Throughout the day, flowers were laid in rituals, banners were made and waved in protest and signs lifted in solidarity.
Organizing groups included the American Friends Service Committee, Aurora Unidos, Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, Defenders Union of Colorado, and Housekeys Action Network.
Their unified message for the day was, “Immigrant rights are human rights, and the community will not stay silent.”
Proud of these folks!!
“Love had no borders”–but the US does, and is authorized to enforce them, regardless of what these open borders fetishists believe.