{"id":16643,"date":"2025-09-04T22:59:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T04:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/residents-call-on-durango-city-council-to-take-action-against-ice\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:00:02","slug":"residents-call-on-durango-city-council-to-take-action-against-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/residents-call-on-durango-city-council-to-take-action-against-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents call on Durango City Council to take action against ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"At
At least 38 residents filed into the Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building near 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Anger, fright and desperation set the mood for Durango City Council\u2019s regular meeting Wednesday. Before the meeting had begun, anti-fed phrases were outlined in chalk on the public sidewalk outside City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cICE is the New Gestapo\u201d and \u201cNO ICE, NO KKK, NO FASCIST, USA\u201d were scrawled in blue, green and yellow chalk on the concrete in front of City Hall.<\/p>\n

A cohort of residents at least 100 strong had assembled outside City Hall to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and some to continue advocating for other city issues.<\/p>\n

Nineteen public speakers urged the city to, at least, pass a resolution showing solidarity with immigrants, arguing without city leadership, immigrants\u2019 voices will continue to go unheard, unrepresented and unprotected.<\/p>\n

The subject of ICE\u2019s unruly conduct in Durango, La Plata County and nationwide dominated the meeting.<\/p>\n

\"At
At least 38 residents filed into the Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building near 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Some residents asked Durango to institute a no-mask policy for law enforcement agents, similar to a California state law proposed by lawmakers<\/a> in June. Others asked why ICE is permitted to jam traffic on Main Avenue in order to apprehend a suspect. And others asked for the city to post information about preparing for ICE raids on its website.<\/p>\n

Resident Karen Pontius said one of the most recent arrests involved ICE running people off the road in Bayfield. She said ICE agents are \u201cmasked bounty-hunters\u201d and \u201cthey\u2019re endangering residents with their tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE activity in Bayfield<\/div>\n

A Reddit user posted a link to a Go Fund Me on r\/Durango on Wednesday and described the events leading to the detention of Martin Geobany \u201cGeo\u201d Terrazas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Reddit user, \u201cFfsgetout,\u201d who did not reply to a request from The Durango Herald <\/em>for more information, said in the post that Terrazas was traveling in his truck with a coworker down a \u201cquiet dirt road\u201d to work when they were forced off the road by unmarked ICE vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those terrifying moments, Terrazas managed to place a frantic 28-second call to his wife, Liz. She heard him say, \u2018ICE is grabbing me up\u2019 followed by a shuffling noise \u2026 and then the line went dead,\u201d the user said.<\/p>\n

Terrazas\u2019 wife traced his pinned location to find the truck halfway in a ditch with the windows rolled down and the keys resting on the dashboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesperate, family and friends gathered outside the immigration office, only to be met with silence and locked doors. Finally, after an agonizing day of uncertainty, Geo was able to call. He confirmed he had been taken and is now being held in Denver,\u201d the user said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Reddit user posted a link to a GoFundMe page on r\/Durango Wednesday and described the events leading to the detention of Martin Geobany \u201cGeo\u201d Terrazas in Bayfield on Tuesday. (Screenshot)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Reddit user described Terrazas, who has lived in Bayfield since he was 8 years old, as a \u201cloving husband, devoted father, and one of the hardest-working men you\u2019ll ever meet\u201d and whose family and entire life reside in the United States.<\/p>\n

Enrique Orozco-Perez, co-director of Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center, said confirmed the Bayfield arrest, but he could not confirm specific details, being unfamiliar with what exactly occurred.<\/p>\n

Resident Gianna Bandy Gomar said at the City Council meeting she moved to the United States from Mexico in 2001 when she was 12 years old, and walking outside to stargaze at night \u2013 a luxury not afforded to her as a child in Mexico City for safety reasons \u2013 made Durango feel like a safe place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a space where I felt a community. It was a space where I felt supported and cared for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, she said, she works for a youth-serving organization and sees the children there are too terrified to go to school, fearing their parents won\u2019t be home upon return.<\/p>\n

\"At
At least 38 residents filed into the Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building at 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"At
At least 38 residents filed into the Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building at 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThis is a federal issue, but what you can do is take a stance,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what everyone here is asking you all to do, take a stance, do something about this, because united, we\u2019re much, much stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public comment after comment, residents explained how unchecked detention and deportation of immigrant community members, families, friends and workers is not above nor beneath the duties of elected city officials.<\/p>\n

Shortly into the public comments, the first of which elicited applause from attendees, Mayor Gilda Yazzie slammed her gavel and demanded silence. She threatened the crowd with a procedural \u201cout of order,\u201d and a threat of recess, should attendees clap again.<\/p>\n

After another round of applause, Yazzie stayed true to her promise, called the meeting out of order and initiated a five-minute recess. While Yazzie exited the Smith Council Chambers into a hallway and disappeared around the corner, other councilors left their chairs on the dais and engaged residents in the chambers and the foyer.<\/p>\n

\"Residents
Residents filled Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building at 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI wanted order, and I already had told them that if they\u2019re going to shout and scream after everybody and clap, that I was going to call it recess and let them calm down. It\u2019s kind of like a timeout. And I think they got that after a while, because after the rest of the evening, there was only a few people who tried to disrupt the public hearing,\u201d Yazzie said in an interview.<\/p>\n

When asked why Yazzie didn\u2019t call the meeting out of order when attendees and staff applauded City Manager Jos\u00e9 Madrigal when he was awarded a plaque at the beginning of the meeting for being named a top 10 city manager in the U.S. in 2025, Yazzie said that process didn\u2019t involve any public participation.<\/p>\n

Councilor Jessika Buell proposed a revised resolution reaffirming \u201cthe city\u2019s commitment to every member of the Durango community,\u201d which she prefaced describing a meeting between immigrants advocates the previous day.<\/p>\n

The proposed resolution would also reaffirm and assure city police can do their \u201cjobs effectively while upholding the city\u2019s values,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"At
At least 38 residents filed into the Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building at 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In interviews with the Herald<\/em>, councilors and Madrigal said retaliation from the federal government \u2013 such as the withholding of federal dollars \u2013 should the city make too tall a stand against immigration enforcement is a real concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s fears throughout the country that funding can be slashed if we take positions that don\u2019t abide by the current federal administration,\u201d Yazzie said.<\/p>\n

Councilor Shirley Gonzales said the city doesn\u2019t have the authority to abolish ICE or prevent immigration officers from restraining or detaining people, but it can ask law enforcement officers to identify themselves and inform residents about judicial warrants and probable cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things we can do as a city, and many of them were mentioned last night, including education campaigns, educational awareness, telling people where the (rapid response) hotline is, informing people of their rights,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"At
At least 38 residents filed into the Smith Council Chambers at Durango City Hall on Wednesday while dozens more waited in the foyer and outside the building at 10th Street and East Second Avenue. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018United, we\u2019re much, much stronger\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[950,1020,896,28,904,265,1310],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango","tag-durango-city-council","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-immigration","tag-politics","tag-safety-of-citizens"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20313,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16643\/revisions\/20313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16643"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}