Dozens of protesters remained outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Durango on Tuesday morning, after demonstrating through the night over reports that federal agents had detained two children and their father on the way to school.
The children, ages 11 and 14, and their father were taken Monday morning by ICE agents who pulled them over near a mobile home park at the edge of town, said Enrique Orozco-Perez, executive director of Compañeros, Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center.
A legal representative is working with the family on their asylum case and it remains active, Orozco-Perez said.
“Our legal representative went to the ICE office and presented the paperwork. ICE refused the paperwork and refused to give up the kids,” he said. “At a minimum, we were asking for the children and to be reunited with their mother.”
Orozco-Perez declined to provide the father’s name, saying that doing so could jeopardize his privacy and further endanger the family.
“We’re a small, small community in southwest Colorado and we don’t want people who may be against what our message is to bring harm to anyone near that family,” he said.
A spokesperson for ICE declined to comment when asked about the reported arrests on the phone Tuesday morning. An email with questions was not immediately returned.
About 60 to 70 demonstrators remained outside the building, at 32 Sheppard Dr., chanting “Let the kids go!” Orozco-Perez said. Orozco-Perez, who works directly with immigrant communities in Durango, is in Minneapolis for personal business, but is receiving live updates from people at the protest, he said.
“Causing good trouble,” he said. “Everything legal, everything followed by the Constitution, freedom of speech.”
About 7 a.m. Monday, Compañeros received a report that one of its members was pulled over on the side of the road by masked people wearing police vests, he said. Two people from the center’s Rapid Response Network went to the area to document ICE activity.
“They were detaining a gentleman who kept screaming in Spanish that his kids are in the back of the car. When our volunteers started asking about the kids, they were able to find out that their mother lived near there and that because of the mother’s status, she too was afraid to go over there,” Orozco-Perez said.
ICE refused to let the children go with the representatives from the resource center and instead handcuffed them and placed them inside the back of the car with their father, he said.
Protesters gathered outside the building at 11 a.m. Monday and swelled to 200, he said. People took shifts, in groups of at least 50, to keep vigil through the night.
On Monday night, a legal representative from Compañeros received a call from the children’s mother, who said she heard from one of her children saying that ICE was sending them to Texas and their father to the detention center in Aurora.
“The point is to get this as far and wide as possible, so people can see the cruelty that’s happening in real time and see that kids who are just trying to get an education, which is their their right for living in this country that’s being trampled on,” Orozco-Perez said. “We’re literally taking away kids being kids.”
Karla Sluis, public information officer for Durango School District, said the father was driving his kids to school when the arrests happened Monday. Sluis did not confirm which school the children attended, citing privacy concerns.
Tuesday morning, the school district sent a message to all staff and families to offer counseling services, Sluis said. The district has bilingual parent liaisons that are working with families, she said.
“We don’t know the immigration status of the kids in our schools, we exist to serve all kids,” she said. “We are doing everything we can to wrap support and love and understanding around the students and families that are affected.”
Hence then, the article about dozens protest outside ice building in durango after 2 children father detained was published today ( ) and is available on Colorado Sun ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Dozens protest outside ICE building in Durango after 2 children, father detained )
Also on site :