Hundreds of demonstrators line West 7th to protest deportations, family separations
With car horns, air horns, wooden ratchet noisemakers and hundreds of voices in unison, protesters expressed their boisterous opposition on Sunday afternoon to the deportations of the second Trump administration.
The demonstrators lined the sidewalk on West Seventh Street near the Fort Worth Police & Firefighters Memorial, chanting and cheering as supporters drove past with Mexican flags waving, Mexican music blaring.
Carol Tonche, 34, of Fort Worth, teared up when explaining why she came out to participate.
“I came out not just for me,” she said. “I’ve spent not just weeks, but months crying because I feel in my soul, could feel it coming.”
Hearing the anti-immigrant rhetoric during the 2024 president campaign made Tonche, herself a Mexican-American, remember pain she has felt collectively with the entire country.
“I remembered September 11 as an 11-year-old girl in a very southern classroom as we saw the buildings fall,” she said. “I remember crying and looking around me and feeling that hurt.”
Immigrants built the country and are part of what it is to be American, she said. Now, with the federal government calling members of her community criminals, she feels like the United States has turned its back on her and her family, several of whom have served in the military and gone to war.
This sentiment appeared to be felt by others in the protest, many of whom held signs that read “Don’t bite the hands that feed you,” “Immigrants make America great,” and one that read, “Without immigrants, Trump would have no wives.”
Two of President Donald Trump’s three wives were not born in the United States.
Rafael Garcia, 17, of Fort Worth, said he has seen several in his community affected by immigration enforcement.
“I’ve seen a lot of families separated by deportations,” he said.
Like Tonche and all the others who spoke to the Star-Telegram on Sunday, Garcia is a U.S. citizen. No one in his immediate family has been deported, but he has cousins and friends whose families have been separated by deportations.
“They’ve got to stop deporting out people,” he said. “They come to support their families, better opportunities for their kids. This is wrong.”
Trump signed several executive orders meant to ramp up immigration enforcement and deportations upon entering office. Immigration authorities arrested over 1,000 people in the country without authorization in the first few days of his new administration, and have already deported hundreds, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the White House.
ICE arrested 84 people in North Texas on Sunday, the Star-Telegram’s media partner WFAA reported.
Sunday’s demonstration was organized by 20-year-old Marie Esquivel of Fort Worth, who told the Star-Telegram that she felt she had to do something after seeing a friend’s parents deported.
“Seeing how Trump is separating families is just so heartbreaking,” Esquivel said. “I understand he wants to take bad people out, but the way he’s doing it is wrong. He’s also taking the innocent too, and it’s not right.”
With her phone in hand, she ran up and down the line of protesters, leading chants, asking them to make sure to follow police orders to stay out of the street, and live streamed the event.
She got help promoting the event from the Tarrant County Democratic Party, which posted notice of it on its social media accounts.
“We understand that our country was built by immigrants,” said Marisela Aramino, who does public relations and voter outreach for the party. “And as a daughter of immigrants myself — my parents moved here both when they were children — this is an issue that is very important to us as a county party, and especially important to me.”
Despite the preponderance of Mexican flags at the protest, she said deportations impact immigrants of all nationalities.
“This isn’t going to just affect my people. This is going to affect folks from different nationalities that have all come to this country for the American dream,” she said. “We’re calling on Congress to act in support of immigrants rights, ensuring a path to citizenship, protecting families from deportation, creating a fair, humane immigration system for all.”
The party is planning another protest in central Arlington on Sunday, Feb 2, at 4 p.m. More details will be released via the Tarrant County Democratic Party’s social media as the week progresses, she said.
Similar protests were held in West Dallas and Austin on Sunday as well.
This story was originally published January 26, 2025 at 6:44 PM.
