Dallas: 2000 rally against Trump’s deportations

Dallas, TX – Amid heightened fear and strings of ICE raids around the country, 2000 people gathered at Dallas’ Trinity Park, January 26, to rally against the racist crackdowns of the Trump administration.

The large rally was organized by high school students Ximena Basilio and Joselin Ibarra. Basilio commented, “It doesn’t seem fair seeing how families are getting separated from their loved ones. It doesn’t seem fair to see people getting broken up.”

Ibarra continued, “This protest started as a small conversation we had that turned into a TikTok that got a lot of shares and was eventually shared all over social media.”

The crowd gathered at 3 p.m. and quickly filled the park to chants of, “Trump escucha, estamos en la lucha” and “Sí, se puede!” Energy was high in spite of gray skies and wet weather, drawing the attention of both local news and Dallas police. The crowd took to the streets, eventually blocking a major bridge across the Trinity River just before 6 p.m. as law enforcement was seen preparing to escalate against them with pepper ball guns.

Four years earlier, during the George Floyd uprising, the same Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge was the site of a kettling operation at the hands of Dallas PD that saw hundreds of protesters detained.

Members of La Frontera Nos Cruzo, the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression and Freedom Road Socialist Organization were in attendance, with attendees from NAARPR addressing the crowd themselves and using their sound system to guide the crowd safely back to Trinity Park just off the bridge.

Jose Rodriguez of NAARPR led the crowd, chanting “Yo no soy criminal, Donald Trump es criminal” as protesters regrouped. Police closed in until 7:45 p.m. but they held off as the crowd settled in the park.

Elizabeth Velasquez, mother of one of the young organizers, shared her pride in her daughter’s work putting this rally together, stating, “I am very proud of them because they had the courage that many of us adults do not. They are 16 years old and have made their voices heard where many others cannot speak up.”

Near the end of the action, one speaker, Xavi Velasquez of La Frontera Nos Cruzó, said, “We have to take the word ‘illegals’ out of our vocabulary book. We aren’t illegal. We aren’t criminals. We aren’t terrorists. We are regular, everyday working-class people trying to go to school, trying to go to church and trying to go to work. The real criminals are the corporations and politicians who spread these lies about us.”

A second rally was called for the following week at City Hall as the crowd eventually dissipated into the night. Dallas has seen this before and will see it again, and the people of Dallas will again be prepared to rise to the occasion.

#DallasTX #TX #ImmigrantRights #Trump