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As hundreds of Denver students and teachers marched around the Colorado Capitol Friday in a crowd the length of several city blocks, two words dominated the protest. They were written in marker on signs, printed on T-shirts and flags, and shouted through bullhorns.
“F— ICE!”
A construction worker in a neon vest stood in the back of a flatbed truck on Denver’s 16th Street Mall, filming on his phone. When the chant died down, he hollered, “Don’t get quiet now!”
“F— ICE!” the students shouted again with renewed vigor, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Some Denver Public Schools students and 1,136 of the district’s approximately 5,000 teachers didn’t go to school Friday, a district spokesperson said, on a day of nationwide protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions. The “National Shutdown” was sparked by an immigration crackdown in Minnesota, where federal agents have made thousands of arrests and shot and killed two people.
Two metro area school districts — Aurora Public Schools and the Commerce City-based Adams 14 — canceled school Friday due to staff absences. Denver schools were open, but the start of classes was delayed by two hours at a half-dozen schools. The district also canceled preschool classes and center-based programs for students with disabilities.
Jay Morin, a math teacher at East High School, didn’t go to work Friday. But his wife did. She teaches at an elementary school that serves a lot of immigrant students, he said.
“Her job, and what she can do, is to be a comfort for those kids and for their families,” Morin said, marching alongside his teenage son. “All of our teachers care about our kids, especially our most vulnerable families, and we’re all going to show up in our own ways. But make no mistake about it — we’re all going to show up.”
Isa, a senior at East High, said he was protesting because his family is from Central America. Chalkbeat is not using students’ last names to protect their privacy.
“I felt so affected seeing my own people being taken away,” Isa said. He said his family’s struggles and hard work allowed him to stay in school, and he felt called “to use my privilege to speak out for the people that can’t speak out.”
Enzo and Haleakala, eighth graders from DSST: Montview middle school, marched while wearing matching anti-ICE T-shirts that Haleakala’s mother made.
“Recently, they’ve been taking … Native people, and it’s technically our land,” said Haleakala, who is Taos Pueblo and Lakota. “America was built off of immigrants. And also it’s very unfair how they’re killing everybody even though they’re U.S. citizens. In all reality, ICE agents don’t need to take this violence to our streets, to our homes. People shouldn’t live in fear.”
Students and teachers held handmade signs with slogans including, “Your Borders Don’t Trump Human Rights,” “Colorado (heart) Minnesota,” and “Deport Melania Trump.” A dog wore a sandwich board-style poster that read, “Better Trained Than Most ICE Agents.”
Office workers whizzed by on downtown Denver’s ubiquitous electric scooters and shouted their encouragement. Police officers blocked the route. When a few of the students gave two motorcycle officers a friendly wave, the officers nodded back.
Kristen Hodel marched with her son Noah, a sophomore at George Washington High.
“I’m just 54 and on board and crying my heart out,” Hodel said as the high schoolers all around her chanted, “This is what democracy looks like!”
“I’m here because I love my school,” Noah said. “GW is my home. And we have a huge immigrant population. … I’m here because immigrants make America great.”
An East High chemistry teacher in a red Denver Classroom Teachers Association T-shirt walked with a colleague toward the back of the protest. The teacher said they didn’t want to give their name because of how East High has already been targeted by the Trump administration, which investigated the school’s all-gender restroom and concluded that it violates federal law.
Just as the teacher began to talk about why they called out of work, a man sitting near a bus stop yelled, “F— all the immigrants! Get them out of here!”
“That,” the teacher’s colleague said. “That is why we’re out here.”
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
Melanie Asmar 2026-01-31 00:26:10
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