Anti-ICE Denver Protesters Gather at Parks, Streets and the Capitol as Strikes Loom

A long list of Denver restaurants, cafes and other businesses have joined a national strike on Friday, January 30, intended to speak out against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Trump administration. The business strikes take place alongside protests and other anti-ICE events, one of which has already attracted hundreds of high school students to march on the State Capitol and through downtown Denver.

While some of Denver’s most popular and beloved bars, eateries and cafes closed on Friday for the strike, including Sap Sua, Hudson Hill and Trashhawk Tavern, others stayed open with the promise of donating some of their sales from the day to organizations that support immigrants. Highlands wineshop Bon Vin is donating to Casa de Paz, Englewood brewery Lady Justice is donating to the Immigrant Freedom Fund and pizza and pasta restaurants owned by Mamas and Papas Hospitality (Redeemer Pizza, Johnny Bechamel’s, Dio Mio Pasta) are raising money for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. Prodigy Coffeehouse locations are open, but offering free coffee to protesters throughout the day.

Champagne Tiger, a brunch diner on East Colfax Avenue, is donating 20 percent of its lunch and brunch revenue to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, a local nonprofit that provides free legal support to immigrants, on Friday because “today felt like a meaningful time to get involved,” owner Chris Donato told Westword.

“Working on holidays, we work holidays, we work nights, we work weekends, which often means that we can’t protest or support our community in the more visible ways people often do, going to the State Capitol to protest and all of that,” Donato said. “This felt like a way to support a part of our community that is very important to all of us, immigrants, and a way for our team to participate.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of high school students across the metro area are also motivated to demonstrate after taking the day off. The Aurora and Adams 14 public school districts canceled classes on Friday because a large number of staff were expected to be absent. Although Denver Public Schools didn’t make the same move, many campuses are short-staffed and experiencing delayed schedules, with well over one hundred students from Northfield High School, a DPS school in Central Park, and others showing up at the Capitol before noon to wave signs reading “Fuck ICE” and “Renee Good. ICE Bad.”

“I’m a high school student, and I’m scared about my friends and my family and my community members not being able to live their lives freely,” Madelyn Masten, a student from Northfield High School, told Westword while holding a protest sign alongside her friends outside the Capitol on Friday. “Being the younger generation, people look down on us and are expecting a lot from us, but I think we can also make the biggest change. …I think if we’re fighting for what matters for us right now, we can make a change in the future.”

High schoolers from Denver North, South and East high schools marched through Cap Hill and the Golden Triangle in the afternoon, with creative chants like “ice on our wrists, not our streets.” A larger rally is planned today at 2 p.m. in La Alma Lincoln Park.

“I believe in our community, in the good always winning,” Donato said. “The political climate is worrying, of course, but I’m hopeful in the face of all that.”

“A lot of our drivers are immigrants, so we had to get out here to support them,” Gonzales told Westword. “They face a lot of risks in their work, and they need to know we’re here for them.”

Artists Javier Badell and Jared David Paul set up a station at La Alma picnic tables with acrylics, spray paints and canvases for people to paint their own protest signs, which was popular. 

La Alma Lincoln Park is one of Denver’s oldest residential neighborhoods, and was home to some of the country’s earliest and most influential Chicano activism movements in the 1960s and ’70s. According to organizers with Colorado 50501, around 3,500 people are estimated to have shown up.