A crowd of about 100 protesting President-elect Donald Trump gathered at Denver’s Barnum Park on Wednesday evening. They chanted slogans and carried signs reading “not my president” and “dump Trump.”
The protest, organized by Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, a Denver-based social services nonprofit, was called to help calm local fears of deportation in the wake of Trump’s presidential election victory, organizers said.
“There’s a lot of fear and concern in the community,” said Ricardo Martinez, a director with PJU. “We can defend our civil rights.”
Rhetoric and Trump platforms in his 2016 presidential campaign called for mass deportations and construction of a security wall along the border of Mexico and the United States.
Activists in Denver plan to take a proactive approach, Martinez said, and more events are planned in Denver, by various groups, in the upcoming days.
“We want to be proactive and deal with concerns and anxieties,” he said.
Massive Trump protests broke out across the country Wednesday, including in California, Chicago and New York City.
There’s an estimated 11 million people living in the United States who have entered the country illegally or overstayed visas.
As protesters marched on a sidewalk along Federal Boulevard just south of West Sixth Avenue, some drivers passing by honked horns of vehicles in support. At one point a truck with the flag of Mexico streaming from the back of the pickup bed drove by.
Denver police watched the peaceful protest from a short distance. At one point, an officer asked organizers to call back a couple of stray protesters, as a safety concern, who were marching along the boulevard divide between traffic. The women quickly joined the majority of protesters on the sidewalk.
Some of the protesters, which included adults, teens and children, snapped cellphone photographs and videos of the event. Activists, some dressed in matching red T-shirts with the PJU signature, used bullhorns to lead chants as one man banged a drum to drive cadence.
“We call for comprehensive immigration reform that’s humane — not dividing families, but uniting families,” Martinez said.