Colorado Springs, CO – On August 29, community members gathered with signs outside of an unmarked immigrant holding facility for the 56th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium, and its second annual commemoration in Colorado Springs.
Members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), About Face, and the wider community held up signs reading “No ICE! Stop the deportations!” and “Killer ICE off our streets!” Angry chants rang through the air as the crowd pointed a megaphone at the holding facility, joined by supportive honks from drivers passing by.
The Chicano Moratorium is recognized as a key moment in the movement for Chicano liberation.
Chicanos today face many problems, such as racist police violence and ICE terror. On July 9, members of the Colorado Springs community watched as ICE agents led their family members out of the backdoor of an unassuming office building in shackles. The agents loaded the detainees into a GEO transport van to take them to the detention center in Aurora, Colorado. The office building, in reality a holding facility hidden from the public, became the target for this year’s Moratorium.
At the action, FRSO member Mel Medina spoke about who profits from Chicano oppression, saying, “The monopoly capitalists are constantly stealing the resources of Aztlán. They are depriving us of land that was once ours and using it for their own gain.” Medina connected this to ICE, noting that “they hire our people and use ICE as a tool to exploit workers; as soon as workers demand better pay and benefits, the monopoly capitalists threaten to call ICE.”
Veteran and About Face member Matt Mitchell spoke about the need to resist imperialism everywhere, saying, “We don’t want to see war abroad, and we don’t want to see a militarized ICE force acting against our Black and brown population here.”
FRSO member Brandon Rincon concluded the protest with a call for international solidarity, saying “We need to unite across national and color lines. We need to unite the many to defeat the few!”
#ColoradoSpringsCO #CO #OppressedNationalities #ChicanoMoratorium #ImmigrantRights #ICE
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