Thousands took to the streets on Wednesday and Saturday last week following a series of dramatic raids by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) throughout Denver as protesters expressed solidarity with the undocumented and rage at Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.
However a movement of hard-right, anti-immigrant activists in the Republican party found representation at this time in Colorado, such as in the form of congressman Tom Tancredo, who built his political career attacking Denver libraries for stocking Spanish speaking books, calling for the deportation of a Denver high school student, stripping “sanctuary cities” of their federal funding, and calling on America to reject the “cult of multiculturalism”.
Thousands protest against Trump’s war on immigrants after Ice raids: ‘Fight for our neighbors’ Protesters in Colorado express solidarity with the undocumented after dramatic raids throughout Denver.
In the 1990s, when Democrats were being pulled to the right on issues like immigration, Denver’s mayor, Wellington Webb, pushed against that tide, criticizing federal persecution of immigrants in a 1998 executive order and declaring the state capital would “welcome all to share in Denver’s warm hospitality”.
The US president has taken a special interest in the historically immigrant-friendly state of Colorado, calling his deportation plan for alleged gang members Operation Aurora, named for the Denver suburb claimed by him and echoed by conservative media to have been “taken over” by the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).
