Eagle County residents rally in Edwards to protest recent ICE activity

Roughly 40 people gathered in groups in Edwards on Friday evening to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ presence in Eagle County.

The gathering was centered around the intersection of Edwards Village Boulevard and U.S. Highway 6, not far from the scene of detainments made earlier in the week in Edwards which affected several locals.

Eagle County local Alex Sellers said he helped organize the protest as a result of those arrests.

“(The protest) was an emergency response, because we just found out ICE was setting up operations in Edwards,” Sellers said.

Sellers held a sign saying “Due process is due,” one of many signs that could be read from the vehicles passing through the roundabout on Friday. A few of the signs said, simply, “ICE is here.”

Support Local Journalism

Donate

Never one to miss a roundabout demonstration, Eagle County’s most well-known sign holder, Tim “Chicken Man” McMahon, displayed a sign that said “We need ice for children to play hockey, not ICE to take away their parents.”

“I figured we might also try to get some donations to the Rodeo Rink while we’re here,” McMahon said, in reference to an effort to create a new ice surface in Eagle County amid the construction that will shut down Dobson ice arena in Vail next hockey season.

Locals Bruce and Coralie Rogers held up signs that said “Melt ICE” and “Move ICE to Antarctica.”

The couple said the timing of the ICE activity in Eagle County will be damaging to the resort-area economy.

“I can’t believe they chose to come right before the height of the summer season,” Coralie Rogers said. “Our whole county relies on immigrant labor.”

Sellers designed a sign that said, “No one is illegal on stolen land,” another theme that could be seen repeated in several signs.

Christie Herman painted a picture of Earth on her sign, with the words “We are all immigrants” surrounding it.

Herman works for the Literacy Project and said the sudden enforcement of immigration laws in Eagle County has been particularly disruptive to her work teaching English to immigrants. She said the most heartbreaking part of the deportations across the country has been the children who are affected.

“The kids come to class so excited to learn English,” she said of her students.

In recent months, however, Herman said she has seen fewer participants in her classes than she would like.

“We’re having a hard time getting people to come to class because they’re afraid,” she said. “So if you want immigrants to learn English, this has been really self defeating.”