Hundreds protest outside ICE building in Durango after 2 children, father detained

Hundreds of protesters chanted for hours Tuesday outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Durango, as two detained children were removed from the building, fueling the demand for answers from federal officials. 

The children, ages 12 and 15, and their father were taken Monday morning by ICE agents who pulled them over near a mobile home park at the edge of town, said Enrique Orozco-Perez, executive director of Compañeros, Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center.

On Tuesday afternoon, members of the group said they saw the children being removed from the building, but it was unclear where they were being taken or where the father was being held. A spokesperson for ICE declined to comment when asked about the reported arrests on the phone. An email with questions was not immediately returned.

Fernando Jaramillo Solando, his 12-year-old daughter, Jana Michel Jaramillo Patiño, and 15-year-old son, Kewin Daniel Patiño Bustamante, are asylum-seekers from Colombia who have lived in Colorado for more than 18 months, Compañeros said in a letter to Colorado U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper posted on social media Tuesday morning. 

“We respectfully request that your offices contact ICE immediately to advocate for the release of Mr. Jaramillo and his two minor children while their asylum case proceeds. The family poses no flight risk and has substantial community support and housing in place,” the center said.

None of the detained family members has a criminal record or history of noncompliance with ICE reporting requirements and their asylum case remains active, the center said. 

Protesters started to gather outside the ICE building Monday afternoon after the family members were detained and took shifts through the night to keep vigil. 

“Our legal representative went to the ICE office and presented the paperwork. ICE refused the paperwork and refused to give up the kids,” Orozco-Perez said. “At a minimum, we were asking for the children and to be reunited with their mother.”

The protest was largely peaceful Tuesday but began to escalate about 12:15 p.m., as more than 200 protesters blocked an area near the office at 32 Sheppard Dr., said Franci Stagi, who arrived shortly after 5 a.m. At least seven ICE agents dressed in camouflage pepper-sprayed people in the crowd, she said. Durango police officers were also on scene. 

The ICE agents broke through a human chain that protesters had formed to block them from removing the family from the facility, the Durango Herald reported. The agents dragged protesters who were sitting on the pavement in front of the gate, the newspaper reported. 

Demonstrators shouted “Let the kids go!” and held up signs that read “Hands off kids,” according to videos of the protest shared on social media.

“Causing good trouble,” said Orozco-Perez, works directly with immigrant communities in Durango. He is currently in Minneapolis for personal business, but is receiving live updates from people at the protest. 

“Everything legal, everything followed by the Constitution, freedom of speech.”

The Colorado State Patrol were also called to the facility Tuesday, at request of local law enforcement, “to ensure public safety” after demonstrators blocked the exit and bolted an access gate closed, the agency said in a statement. 

Troopers did not participate in any immigration enforcement action, CSP said. 

“The Patrol’s role was to aid in deescalation and protection of all parties present, maintain the peace, and address any identified unlawful behavior,” CSP said. “Members of the Colorado State Patrol did not use any weapons or chemical munitions.” 

About 7 a.m. Monday, Compañeros received a report that one of its members was pulled over on the side of the road by masked people wearing police vests, he said. Two people from the center’s Rapid Response Network went to the area to document ICE activity.

“They were detaining a gentleman who kept screaming in Spanish that his kids are in the back of the car. When our volunteers started asking about the kids, they were able to find out that their mother lived near there and that because of the mother’s status, she too was afraid to go over there,” Orozco-Perez said.

ICE refused to let the children go with the representatives from the resource center and instead handcuffed them and placed them inside the back of the car with their father, he said. 

On Monday night, a legal representative from Compañeros received a call from the children’s mother, who said she heard from one of her children saying that ICE was sending them to Texas and their father to the detention center in Aurora. 

“The point is to get this as far and wide as possible, so people can see the cruelty that’s happening in real time and see that kids who are just trying to get an education, which is their their right for living in this country that’s being trampled on,” Orozco-Perez said. “We’re literally taking away kids being kids.”

Karla Sluis, public information officer for Durango School District, said the father was driving his kids to school when the arrests happened Monday. Sluis did not confirm which school the children attended, citing privacy concerns.

Tuesday morning, the school district sent a message to all staff and families to offer counseling services, Sluis said. The district has bilingual parent liaisons who are working with families, she said.

“We don’t know the immigration status of the kids in our schools, we exist to serve all kids,” she said. “We are doing everything we can to wrap support and love and understanding around the students and families that are affected.”

Under President Donald Trump, ICE agents arrested at least 81 children under 18 years old in Colorado from January 20 to July 28 of this year, according to data obtained from ICE and published by the Deportation Data Project. In the same time period in 2024, under President Joe Biden, ICE arrested just one child in this age group.

Anonymous officer throws woman to the ground

Stagi, 57, started protesting Monday evening until about 8:30 p.m. before going home. She was back at the ICE building at 5:20 a.m. and saw an unmarked car pull up around 6:15 a.m., she said.

Stagi was recording on her phone when she asked an officer, “You’re a good Christian, aren’t you?” 

“Boy, did that piss him off,” Stagi told The Sun on Tuesday. The officer, who was wearing a vest with “police” printed on it, knocked her phone out of her hands and she tried to grab it back. 

(Warning: This video contains violence and strong language.)

The officer then yelled, “She’s assaulting me!” Stagi said. 

The officer grabbed Stagi by her hair, put her in a chokehold and pushed her to the ground and over a grassy embankment, where she landed on her head, according to a video of the interaction reviewed by The Sun.

It was not clear through the video which agency the officer worked for. 

After ICE agents left, Durango police arrived and took Stagi’s name and driver’s license but didn’t complete a report on the incident, she said. Paramedics assessed her for injuries.

“Had my head hit the pavement instead of grass, that would have been bad,” she said. 

Stagi, a mother of two, said she plans to stay at the protest all day.

“If my kid were taken,” she said, “I would want somebody to be here, just as ‘We see you.’”

Protest erupts around noon

Drew Collie linked arms with other protesters to block the building’s entrance around noon when someone said they saw agents put the children inside a car.

Soon, men wearing tactical gear and camouflage clothing got out of white vehicles and started to push protesters, Collie, 22, said.

“I was just sitting in this line and all of a sudden my hat got ripped off of my head and my hair was pulled back and pepper spray was just sprayed completely all over my face,” she told The Sun. 

“I was then lifted up. … They picked me up off the ground, flipped me on like my stomach and shot me twice with rubber bullets,” she said.

The officers, who did not identify themselves, fired the bullets from about an inch away, Collie said. She has large bruises behind her knee and buttocks.

Other demonstrators pulled her away and poured milk all over her face and body to relive the stinging from the pepper spray, she said. 

“My whole body was burning,” she added. 

Before the men arrived, Collie said the protest was peaceful.

“I know that this kind of stuff is happening everywhere, which isn’t OK, but that this is happening in Durango, Colorado, is insane,” she said. “Nobody touched these officers, we were all just peacefully protesting. We were all super peaceful and just community-driven and it was just taken way out of hand by these officers.”

Footage from the protest shows the armed officers in tactical gear, standing near the linked demonstrators and in the street. Other protesters are heard screaming, while some lie in the street as milk is poured over their faces.

Collie said her parents called Durango police to report their daughter’s injuries.

“I believe in standing up for your community, even if you don’t know the people you’re standing up for,” Collie said Tuesday evening. “They’re still your community and they’re still your people. I wanted to go and support them and I’m sure that those teenagers are (expletive) terrified.”

Colorado Sun reporter Taylor Dolven contributed to this story. Colorado Sun freelance writer Sandra Fish also contributed.