Denver Protesters Strike, Dance and Cry During a Weekend of Anti-ICE Rallies

Denver protesters have become a force over the past year, and they like to mix up how they express themselves.

Last year, on February 5, thousands of Denver protesters rallied with “Fuck ICE” signs, Mexican flags, street-closing marches and impassioned speeches for the Fifty State Protest, part of a nationwide movement that has since seen several groups, local and national, sprout up to oppose the Trump administration. But Denver’s first major anti-Trump protest in 2025 also took place on the same day as the first major ICE raid in the metro area.

Denver protesters kept the fight alive against President Donald Trump and ICE into spring, but the spirit of resistance in the Mile High City was weakening at the end of 2025 and into 2026. That is, until federal immigration officers fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this past month; both had ties to Colorado.

As cities across the country protested sweeping ICE operations in the Twin Cities and the death of two anti-immigration activists, Denver protesters weren’t just marching and holding signs en masse as they did a year ago at the Fifty State Protest. Some were dancing, crying and even fighting, with high schoolers, nurses and business owners organizing vigils, strikes and rallies from the State Capitol Building in Denver all the way to Boulder, and at many spots in between.

On Thursday, January 29, several hundred people gathered for a vigil outside the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora to honor Pretti, who was a VA nurse. The night felt somber, as people cried and placed flowers by Pretti’s photo during candlelit speeches from nurses and veterans.

The next day, a general strike was underway across the city. Popular restaurants and bars, including Sap Sua, Hudson Hill and Trashhawk Tavern, and dozens of other businesses closed to oppose ICE. “No Work. No School. No Shopping,” read a sign on the front of Hudson Hill. “ICE out everywhere!!!”

Other businesses like Champagne Tiger, Bon Vin and Roostercat Coffee House donated portions of that day’s revenue to local organizations that support immigrants, including Casa de Paz, the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.

Capitol Hill was quiet that morning until high school students showed up at the Capitol shortly before noon. Aurora and Adams 14 public school districts canceled classes that day because of staff absences. Denver Public Schools didn’t make the same call, choosing instead to operate on delay with a shortened staff, but that didn’t stop DPS students from walking out.

Northfield High School students from Central Park had a permit to gather at the Capitol and were among the first to arrive. They were joined in the afternoon by students from Denver East, South and North, who led an emotional march through the Golden Triangle with creative chants like “ice on our wrists, not on our streets,” with many teenagers unafraid to yell “Fuck ICE” at the top of their lungs.

“We’re scared. We’re scared for our own safety, for the safety of family members, the safety of strangers, as a matter of fact,” said Cristian A Hernandez, a sophomore at South who was pumping up his peers with passionate speeches. “I get that people aren’t supposed to see eye to eye, but to see so much hatred, so much evil, especially with these older folks.”

While students marched, activists with groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Students for a Democratic Society and Notes of Dissent set up tents and tables at La Alma Lincoln Park for anyone curious about becoming more involved. Artists Javier Badell and John David Paul put boxes of spray paint and acrylics alongside blank canvases and discs so that people could paint their own protest signs.

Families with children, couples and hundreds of others congregated in the park throughout Friday afternoon, filling a wide swath of the turf where Chicano activists had rallied in the 1960s. Through a microphone set up on top of a picnic table, students, activists and business owners applauded the turnout and energy. Sap Sua co-owner and chef Anthony “Ni” Nguyen, one of the first notable Denver business owners to announce that he was going on strike to protest ICE, didn’t hold back during his speech.

“I’m proud of every single business owner that decided to close,” Nguyen said. “This is community. This is what happens when we stand together to work towards one goal. Fuck Trump! Fuck ICE!”

Activist Jeanette Vizguerra, only a month out of ICE detention, was in the crowd, cheering and recording every speaker who took the mic. Elected leaders like State Senator Julie Gonzales and Denver City Councilmembers Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, Sarah Parady and Stacie Gilmore watched alongside high school students who had just arrived from marches.

“I’m here for my people and the people. I think we’ve all got to unite. It’s awesome, there’s so much diversity and unity here,” Gerardo Diaz Ortega, a senior at Mountain Vista High School, told Westword.

Diaz Ortega wore a Mexican flag like a cape to La Alma Park, and listened to speeches alongside a classmate who was wearing a Honduran flag to support his famoily.

“They are currently in a fight to get their citizenship. They’ve been here 25 years. I want people to know it’s not an easy process, and there are a lot of people going through that,” Ortega’s friend said. “The number-one thing that inspired me to come out here was to protect not only our citizens but the people who are being pressured by ICE. It’s getting bad out here.”

On Saturday morning, the day after the national strike, protesters in Cherry Creek held a rally against the tech giant Palantir, which develops technology for ICE and the Israeli military. Activists have protested outside the company’s downtown office over the past year; on January 31, DAWA led a march of about a hundred people from James Manly Park towards the new headquarters of Palantir at the Financial House, at 205 Detroit Street.

Some were holding Palestinian flags, and a man confronted them as they approached the building, yelling “anti-Semites.” At first, protesters boxed him out with their signs to allow organizers with megaphones to begin speeches, but the counter-protester took out his phone and began shouting “police!” after someone shoved him. A young woman smacked his phone out of his hands, and when he picked it up and tried to record her face, she grabbed it and chucked it over other protesters as he pulled her by the shoulders.

According to the Denver Police Department, no police report was filed.

The rest of the anti-Palantir protest was peaceful, with DAWA leading a second march and handing anti-Palantir fliers to people dining on Cherry Creek patios and dog walkers along the way. The mood contrasted sharply with the loud, neon scene that unfolded at the Highland Bridge that afternoon, where a group called the Colorado Bridge Trolls partied in protest over Interstate 25 traffic.

The Bridge Trolls were at the two bridges near Central and 15th streets on January 31. The trolls, some of whom are veterans, dressed up as frogs, bunnies, Darth Vader, Batman and the Statue of Liberty. They hung signs reading “ICE OUT” and “Release the [Epstein] Files” over I-25 while swaying and head-banging to songs like “Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine, “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy and “Fuck Donald Trump” by YG and Nipsey Hussle.

The entire block was filled with the din of supportive honking. Motorists, including semi drivers, sounded off nonstop for more than two hours as they passed under the trolls. Most pedestrians and shoppers passing by on their way downtown or to Highland couldn’t help but applaud, record or join them, either.

That was in stark contrast to the scene Saturday night, when hundreds of people rallied at the Capitol’s west lawn as the sun went down; this protest looked more like the Fifty State Protest from a year ago. Demonstrators emphasized Mexican and Indigenous pride with green, white and red flags, as well as traditional garbs like sarapes and spiritual practices, such burning sage. Once night fell, a projector put the words “Abolish ICE” and “Stop ICE Murders” on the side of the Colorado Supreme Court building.

Holding up banners reading “the wrong ICE is melting,” “Abolish ICE” and “ICE Out,” a march led peacefully by the beat of a drum went from the Capitol to Union Station and back. A smaller crowd came together for one more march in the other direction after 9 p.m., and chants of “Fuck ICE” and “Fuck Trump” faded down Broadway.

The noise may be gone, but protesters hope their actions will echo into more action, with another round of major protests planned nationwide on March 28.