Hundreds of protesters gathered Monday in downtown Denver to rally in support of immigrants as part of a Latino Advocacy Day.

The rally, dubbed “Stand With Immigrants,” gathered around 11 a.m. at 17th and Welton streets, for a series of speeches. The speakers included former State Rep. Tim Hernandez, and activists Victor Galvan and Dolores Huerta.

“Everyone here deserves a life without the fear of being torn away from their family,” Galvan told the crowd through a microphone. “I’ve lost my brother to deportation. I’ve lost a father to deportation. My wife’s brother. This is the painful reality we’re living in today.”

Several protesters held anti-ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) and pro-immigrant signs and chants of “Si se puede!” broke out intermittently throughout the speeches. It translates loosely to “yes, we can” or “it can be done.” 

“What an invitation for us to struggle. What a reminder that we come from a long history of struggle,” Hernandez told the crowd. “Nobody never won one thing alone. It takes all of us.”

One protester walked through the crowd burning sage for “cleansing” and to put the protest in the right mind space, he told The Denver Gazette. An event organizer reiterated over the loudspeaker the rally would be non-violent as they planned to march after the speeches.

“What’s about to come is going to be dark, guys. There’s nothing romantic about social movements that have to struggle,” Hernandez said. “They’re born out of pain. We might put this on TikTok and it looks great, but we’re here for (expletive deleted) reasons.”

Event organizers estimated the crowd size was more than 2,000 people by the time the march reached the steps of the Colorado state Capitol.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, ICE agents have focused on mass deportation across the country, including raids in the Denver metro area.

The Trump administration in January issued a directive to strip schools and churches of protections against immigration enforcement. Protesters on Monday spoke of the fear some immigrant families now have of sending their children to school following that action.

Denver Public Schools in February filed a lawsuit requesting a temporary restraining order to keep ICE agents out of school, but a U.S. District Court judge denied the motion earlier this month.

District judge denies Denver schools’ temporary restraining order request to keep ICE out of schools

Aurora was thrust into the national spotlight last fall after a Venezuelan prison gang known as Tren de Aragua (TdA) took over a few apartment complexes.

Typically, illegal immigration directly affects border states. Interior states like Colorado began to experience an influx of immigration three years ago after 90 immigrants were dropped off at Union Station, left to wander in the cold. Since then, Denver has welcomed nearly 43,000 immigrants, mostly from South and Central America, particularly Venezuela. Many arrived in the city after illegally crossing the southern border with Mexico.

Bus, plane and train tickets city officials purchased to send immigrants on to their final destination suggest about half have stayed in Colorado.

Early in the crisis, Denver officials decided local taxpayers would assume the roughly $80 million cost, which had threatened to push the city’s finances to the brink, setting off cuts to services and the budget. The current budget stands at about $12 million.