On June 9, a protest organized by the Dallas-Fort Worth Party for Socialism and Liberation at the mound by Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in downtown Dallas was met by police presence. The protest, which started around the mound and led into a march through the streets, turned confrontational with police deploying tear gas and rubber bullets and arresting a protester.
This protest happened in the wake of protests in Los Angeles over the federal government’s heightening of deportations. The LA protests started June 6 after an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raid targeted a clothing warehouse and escalated in the following days, with President Donald Trump deploying the National Guard and Marines to the largely peaceful protests. These crackdowns on immigration also follow the revocation of academic institutions’ protective statuses, meaning ICE is allowed on school campuses and is permitted to detain people in public campus areas.
The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge protest began at the grassy mound on the southwest side of the bridge around 7 p.m. The majority of the approximately 200 protesters, including at least 4 UTD students and alumni, were organized around the mound, with organizers on the mound leading chants and speaking about the terror ICE has inflicted on immigrant communities across the nation. Marino Santos, a spring 2025 electrical engineering and physics alum from UTD, said that unless people protested and spoke out like he and his fellow protesters did, the status quo would remain.
“It’s one of our constitutional rights to protest,” Santos said. “I feel enraged by what’s been going on … if people stand up and use their voices, there’s nothing that can’t change.”
Protesters came together from multiple political backgrounds: in addition to signs supporting immigrant rights and flags of various Latin American countries, multiple protesters wore keffiyehs and waved the Palestinian flag. Others still brought gay pride flags. Protesters of all ages — including college students from UTD and the University of North Texas — were represented in the crowd.
Other protesters lined up along the sidewalk on Singleton Boulevard, their flags and signs met by supportive honking from cars passing by. One such protester was Silvia Salazar, a veteran sporting a sign that said “ask me about my bone spurs” on one side and “’Go back to Mexico’ but ‘Thank you for your service’” on the other.
“I’ve been seeing how unjust these deportations have been,” Salazar said. “I am an immigrant myself, my dad was an immigrant, my entire family are immigrants. I came for everybody that is too scared because even right now if you have a green card the fear is there for those people. I’m a citizen, I’m a naturalized citizen, I’m a veteran, so I hope I wouldn’t be in any trouble.”
Around 8:40 p.m., a handful of protesters crossed into the median on the west side of the Singleton-North Beckley intersection. Shortly thereafter, cars from the Dallas Police Department appeared and police exited carrying riot shields. This was met with at least one protester shouting, “Why are you in riot gear? There is no riot here,” and a chorus of protestors chanting “shame” towards the officers. Police then ordered over a megaphone that protesters get off the street. Protesters continued to file onto the street, and the Dallas Morning News reported that one protester was arrested for what police say was assault of an officer.
At 8:45 p.m., the protesters started marching west on Singleton Blvd, continued north on Herbert Street before turning southeast on Canada Drive, south on Gulden Lane, and finally went northeast on Singleton, returning to the mound from which the march had started 30 minutes earlier. When protesters were walking back on Singleton, they stuck to the pedestrian walkways and avoided the street. Jovan Costilla, a business analytics senior at UNT, was among the protestors.
“I just want to exercise my First Amendment right, the right to assemble,” Costilla said. “It is for a very good cause, I feel like everyone here has at least a friend, a family member who’s affected by all these racist policies. If you’re a young Latino, Latina, Latinx, just get yourself educated. Reach out to either an advisor, talk to a teacher, talk to an older sibling, a cousin, your parents. I believe the greatest wrong our generation can do is live in ignorance.”
At 9:30 p.m., organizers were instructing protesters to leave the park and go home, repeating, “We need to disperse now, the police are threatening us,” over a megaphone. Protesters left the street, and cops quickly filled in the intersection. At 9:36 p.m., the police declared the protest unlawful. The protesters’ numbers dwindled significantly and would continue to dwindle for the rest of the night.
Around 10:10 p.m., police declared the protest was illegal. Shortly after this, tear gas was deployed upon the remaining protesters. The police then crossed the short barrier separating the intersection and sidewalk into the park. A firework was shot close to the ground between the protesters and the police, and police proceeded to fire rubber bullets into the crowd of protesters, hitting at least one. “It was very unnecessary,” Santos said. “They escalated in my opinion [when] there was absolutely no need.”
