Anti-ICE protesters are marching down Colfax Avenue from City Park in Denver to the GEO Group ICE facility in Aurora.
Over at the GEO Group facility, Aurora police set up barricades bisecting the street, expecting a large protest and competing rally.
Early in the day, ICE supporters far outnumber those opposed to the federal agency’s detention of immigrants. ICE supporters began to gather to the north of barricades at 10 am. By 11 a.m. about 100 people had gathered around a small stage to hear comments from conservative speakers including Michelle Malkin.
As songs from Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin played over loudspeakers, talk radio host and rally organizer Randy Corporon described how the event was a response to “radical leftists” pulling down a U.S. flag from the facility’s flagpole in July.
“We want to make sure that any time there is a message that the men and women of ICE and this facility are Nazis, and child abusers and torturers, that there is a substantial number of American citizens that know better and will say so,” Corporon told a Denver Post reporter before the his on-stage comments.
Joe Rubino, Denver Post
Conservative radio host Randy Corporon address a crowd of ICE supporters outside the GEO Group facility in Aurora on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019.
American flags and red “Make America Great Again” were the most common accessory at the rally. David Phipps, 60, drove in from Centennial to attend.
He said he was there, “Just to support ICE, and support the laws we have, and support the people who follow the laws. Immigrants entering the country through established legal processes are “being left behind,” Phipps said. “Those are the good people who we like to welcome to the country,” he said.
Aurora police tweeted earlier Saturday that they were expecting thousands of people, but as of midday two groups combined were not that large.
This is a developing story, check back for more.
