About 100 people gathered this week outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Durango to protest the detention of a local father and his two children.
The family, asylum seekers from Colombia who have lived and worked in Colorado for more than 18 months, were reportedly detained Monday morning while on their way to school.
According to The Durango Herald, the family was brought to the ICE office in handcuffs.
Protesters began gathering outside the ICE field office in Durango’s Bodo Industrial Park on Monday morning. The Herald reports that the demonstration has grown to around 100 people.
On Monday night, demonstrators formed a human chain to block agents from moving the detained family.
Early Tuesday morning, a vehicle without license plates arrived to deliver food to the family, according to the Herald. Federal agents then came out of the building and threw protesters’ belongings across the road, and one agent appeared to grab a woman’s phone as she filmed him.
There were reports from witnesses that tear gas and rubber bullets had been used on protesters. Federal immigration officials left with the family midday Tuesday, according to local reports.
Enrique Orozco-Pérez, executive director of Compañeros Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center, said his organization represents the family in an active asylum case that began in December 2024.
“We went to the ICE office to present paperwork for this family because they are asylum seekers, which means they are a protected class,” Orozco-Perez said. “ICE refused our paperwork and refused to release the children, who have a mother in town who’s afraid to pick them up.”
According to Orozco-Perez, the family’s asylum case remains open and active. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed that a prior closure notice was due to a clerical error that has since been corrected. None of the detained family members has a criminal record or a history of noncompliance with immigration authorities.
Lauren Patterson on Nextdoor said ICE intended to transfer the father to a detention center in Aurora, Colorado, and the two minors to a facility in Texas.
“These children are not criminals. The father is not a criminal,” Orozco-Perez said. “They were on their way to school. This is racial profiling.”
Community members are concerned that ICE has not permitted access to the family’s legal representatives.
