AURORA, Colorado — Donald Trump has described this house advanced in Aurora as a “warfare zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs intent on taking on town of 400,000.
However on the dwellings on the heart of the controversy, on a quiet avenue close to a local people faculty, youngsters performed exterior Friday as residents and group organizers ready for a cookout and neighborhood fiesta later that night.
“This isn’t a warfare zone. We wish to rejoice the group as we all know it, which is a vibrant group identified for its range,” mentioned Lamine Kane, an organizer with Colorado Folks’s Alliance, a nonprofit centered on financial, environmental and immigrant justice. “Any rhetoric that is being divisive across the nation or anyplace, we completely reject it, and we’re simply right here to rejoice the group as it’s.”
Since Trump thrust the house advanced, and the Denver suburb of Aurora extra broadly, into the nationwide highlight, metropolis officers have pushed again on misinformation from the previous president, whose narratives about an “invasion” of migrants has turn into a focus of his marketing campaign.
Aurora metropolis spokesperson Ryan Luby informed POLITICO in a press release that native police recognized 10 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and 9 had been arrested. Town’s Republican mayor, former five-term congressman Mike Coffer, has repeatedly tried to tamp down fears that his metropolis has been taken over by migrant gangs.
“Former President Trump’s go to to Aurora is a chance to indicate him and the nation that Aurora is a significantly secure metropolis – not a metropolis overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman mentioned in a press release.
Trump first thrust Aurora, a blue suburb in a blue state, into the nationwide political consciousness final month throughout his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. In the identical breath as he claimed Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been “consuming the pets of the people who dwell there,” he claimed members of Tren de Aragua had been “taking on” Aurora.
Weeks later, Trump promised to go to Springfield and Aurora — each of which had spun right into a conspiratorial political vortex. Trump’s marketing campaign has since described Aurora as a “warfare zone,” citing the over 40,000 migrants who’ve descended on close by Denver since 2022, bringing “chaos and concern with them.”
Most of the folks on the residences in Aurora had been despatched to Colorado from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott as a part of a broader effort to name consideration to the immigration problem by transferring migrants to cities and states run by Democrats.
Throughout Trump’s transient swing by way of Colorado on Friday, as he rallied miles from the state’s largest airport earlier than departing to Reno, Nevada, later within the day, residents of Aurora and the encompassing group who had come to help the previous president informed POLITICO they had been afraid of the migrants and supported Trump’s promise of mass deportations.
“Persons are coming in and flooding our streets,” mentioned Cindie Day, who works in Medicare gross sales. Michelle MacFarland, who works in consulting, mentioned she not let her youngsters go into town anymore “as a result of it’s simply too harmful — and that’s new.”
“It is not a function of our creativeness. We’re seeing this,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) informed POLITICO.
However officers in Aurora have repeatedly denied Trump’s assertions that Venezuelan gang members are taking on town.
“The overstated claims fueled by social media and thru choose information organizations are merely not true,” Luby mentioned.
Forward of Trump’s rally, a slew of Democratic lawmakers within the state — together with its governor, each senators and the congressman who represents Aurora within the Home, Rep. Jason Crow — slammed the previous president for spreading misinformation concerning the metropolis.
“President Trump would not appear to care who he hurts together with his phrases and his rhetoric or the results of what he says,” mentioned Gov. Jared Polis, noting that crime in Aurora is “considerably down” over the previous two years.
Not all of the officers within the metropolis agreed with the mayor and governor. On the rally, Metropolis Council Member Danielle Jurinsky mentioned cops had come to her and informed her “we’d like assist” to take care of the gang.
“Make no mistake of it, these photos you see, these mugshots you see, this isn’t a figment of my creativeness,” Jurinsky mentioned.
“If we had an armed group of gang members roaming the hallways of our house complexes, these gang members would have by no means made it out of the constructing with out being led out in handcuffs,” mentioned Darren Weekly, the Republican sheriff of Douglas County, which incorporates a part of Aurora.
Republican Nationwide Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly, talking on behalf of the Trump marketing campaign, mentioned that native officers in Aurora have raised points with gangs in Aurora and used Trump’s look to criticize Harris.
As Trump spoke on stage within the metropolis on on Friday, he did what he does greatest — promote a darkish, Trump-branded model of actuality.
“Kamala has imported a military of unlawful alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … and he or she has had them resettled superbly into your group to hope upon harmless Americans,” Trump mentioned. “And no place is it extra evident than proper right here, as a result of in Aurora, a number of house complexes have been taken over by the savage Venezuela jail gang often known as Tren de Aragua.”
Standing exterior his automotive at one of many house buildings Trump has vilified, resident Heribert Pacheco, who’s from Venezuela, shook his head when requested about Trump’s claims. “After they say that it’s a warfare, that it’s this factor, that there are dangerous folks, I do know that is a lie,” he mentioned in Spanish.
He mentioned there have been some folks “inflicting hurt” in the neighborhood, and who needs to be put “in jail.” However “when one says Venezuelans are performing badly, we do not like that,” Pacheco mentioned. “Like all folks, we’re working for our households to get forward.”
