DENVER (AP) - The Latest on an immigration protest in a suburb of Denver (all times local):
6:10 p.m. Saturday
Organizers of a demonstration against the Trump administration’s immigration policies say that a rogue group of protesters pulled down the American flag from in front of a privately run facility that houses immigrants, stringing up a Mexican flag in its place, the Denver Post reports .
The newspaper reports that some people tried to burn the American flag at Friday night’s demonstration in front of the facility in suburban Denver, while others spray-painted derogatory words about police on another.
Claudia Castillo, a 22-year military intelligence major in the U.S. Army and current legal services coordinator for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, tells the Post that she pleaded with the group of about 25 at that pulling down the flag wasn’t part of the plan. Castillo says that rather than pull back, members of the group spit on her, shoved her, and cursed at her.
“It was disgusting and shameful,” Castillo told the Post. “They have compromised our movement, and they stole the spotlight and endangered our undocumented people.”
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10:09 p.m. Friday
Hundreds of people angry about possible federal immigration roundups across the country protested outside an immigrant detention center in suburban Denver - at one point raising the Mexican flag to the top of one of the poles out front.
The Denver Post reports about 2,000 people gathered at the center in Aurora on Friday night before a candlelight vigil. Protesters packed close to the entrance and raised the Mexican flag and an upside-down American flag on the facility’s flagpoles.
The privately run facility contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
President Donald Trump says the roundups will begin Sunday, and his agents plan to eventually arrest millions of immigrants in the country illegally. Administration officials have said they’re targeting about 2,000 people in the national sweep, which would yield about 200 arrests based on previous crackdowns.
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