Hundreds protest Donald Trump's immigration speech in Phoenix

They came, they chanted, they whacked a blond-haired, blue-suited Trump piñata.

On a toasty late-summer afternoon, the plaza north of the Phoenix Convention Center filled with a noisy, colorful swell of protesters as supporters of Donald Trump filed indoors to hear his speech on immigration.

Amid the jostling signs and pitched arguments, John Chambers hoisted his anti-Trump sign and sported the anti-Trump T-shirt he had designed.

"Hillary has dirt about emails, but he has mud," the Phoenix native said of Trump. "He's dogged people, he's dogged the Mexicans."

Chambers ridiculed Trump's vow that he will deport Latinos in the U.S. illegally, something he repeated in his Wednesday speech.

"Where are you going to drag 11 million people to?" Chambers asked. "Who's going to be picking the onions, the potatoes, the lettuce in the dirt?" he asked, saying his 93-year-old father came to Phoenix decades ago to pick cotton.

Donald Trump clarifies immigration views in Phoenix

But others offered testimonials for Trump.

Ryan King was walking among the protesters, reciting Scripture, when he stopped 9-year-old Aden Nicolas and invited him to testify.

With an approving nod from his mom, the youngster, dressed in a suit, started speaking as King filmed him on his iPhone.

"The world needs Jesus, and I'm just a 9-year-old, and I want to run for president when I'm older, and I just feel like there's so many lost people in the world," Aden Nicholas said to the camera.

King asked him if there was anything he could tell Americans right now, what would it be.

"Trump is our only hope now," Aden said.

Police estimated the crowd at 500 people. Trump supporters were generally across the street from the protesters. A few filtered over to engage in debates with the anti-Trump crowd.

There were no arrests, but late in the protest rally, police ushered two anti-Trump protesters off the sidewalk where speech-goers had entered the Convention Center, saying they were causing a conflict with Trump supporters, even though none were in sight.

Redeem Robinson, 27, was tossed out of the rally about a half-hour before it began after he approached the stage.

"Apparently they knew who I was," said Robinson, who got thrown out of an earlier Trump-Pence rally and was told he was banned from further such events. "Personally, I feel they were looking for black people — people who look like they could cause trouble at these things."

Some Latinos say Donald Trump's visit with Mexican president won't help candidate's image in U.S.

Outside, the crowd cheered as former state lawmaker Earl Wilcox hoisted a Trump piñata over the limb of an acacia tree. Without a stick to hit it, kids took turns jumping up and punching it. Later, Wilcox milled through the crowd, displaying the severed head of the piñata on a long pole.

Protesters voiced complaints that have become routine at anti-Trump protests, taking issue with his slurs against Mexicans, Muslims and women.

"Oh, my God, where do I start?" asked Lance Motta-Vilensky as he put down his sign. "He's a misogynist, he wants to have a religion test to get into the United States, he denigrates Mexicans as rapists, drug dealers and murderers.

"It scares me. I don't want to wake up and find out he's president."

And that, Motta-Vilensky said, is why he was dismayed as he looked around the crowd.

"I think it's pathetic that we're in the midst of a metro area and this is the best we can do," he said. "I wish there were more European-Americans out here, like me."

Donald Trump's shifting immigration statements

Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.