Updated October 11, 2024 at 18:13 PM ET
Former President Donald Trump brought his hardline immigration message to the city of Aurora, Colorado on Friday, a community he has demonized as overrun by migrant crime — despite pushback from local leaders.
In recent weeks Trump has repeatedly name-checked Aurora at speeches and on the debate stage – likening the Denver suburb to a “war zone.” He’s amplified claims that a Venezuelan gang has taken over apartment buildings in the city, a situation that elected Republican and Democratic leaders on the ground have said has been overblown and is being dealt with by local and federal law enforcement.
For nearly 90 minutes, Trump doubled down on that message as he was flanked on stage by the mugshots of undocumented migrants that officials have accused of crimes. He announced that if elected again, he would enact a nationwide effort dubbed “Operation Aurora” to target undocumented migrant gang members for arrest and deportation. Trump said the program would be based on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows a president to detain or deport members of an enemy nation.
The winding remarks touched on a wide range of topics — Al Capone, Hillary Clinton, CBS’ 60 Minutes. But immigration was the dominant theme.
He showed television clips, including Fox News segments, about migrant crime, and said immigrants are coming from insane asylums and prisons and taking over cities like Aurora.
“Our criminals are like babies compared to these people. These criminals are the most violent people on earth.”
He then mentioned Aurora specifically and blamed Vice President Harris for the surge in new immigrants.
“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” said Trump. “And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here.”
Local leaders say the city has actually gotten safer
Around a dozen people with alleged ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have been arrested for a range of crimes in the Denver metro area. But local officials in Aurora have forcefully pushed back against Trump’s claims — saying his remarks about international gangs in the city are an exaggeration.
Researchers have repeatedly found that immigrants, whether or not they are documented, don't commit crimes at higher rates than U.S citizens. City officials have repeatedly denied that the gang controls any building or part of the city, as have many residents of the buildings that Trump has seized on as the basis for his attacks on Aurora.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican and long-time Trump critic, said he hoped Trump would take the time to tour the city.
Coffman’s message to Trump? “I'm excited for you to come here so I could show you that the narrative that is being presented nationally about this city isn't true, that there are no apartment complexes under gang control, that the city's not under gang control, Venezuelan gang control.”
Over the course of his remarks, Trump also blasted Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and referred to him as a coward, a fraud and pathetic — as well as Harris and Democrats more generally.
Gov. Jared Polis acknowledged at a press conference ahead of Trump’s rally that there are victims of crime in Aurora, but noted that statistics show the city has gotten safer over the last two years and said Trump is distorting the truth.
“It really just shows, as a matter of character, that very often when he speaks, former President Trump doesn’t seem to care who he hurts with his words and his rhetoric or the consequences of what he says,” said Polis.
An eager audience in a state Democrats are expected to win
Trump’s visit to Colorado came as polls show he is locked in a historically close race with Harris. And even though Trump is all but certain to lose in reliably blue Colorado, for his backers in the state, his visit was a welcome event.
Roughly 10,000 people filled a hall in Aurora near the airport at Gaylord Rockies, a resort and convention center on the outskirts of a city Trump has said was dangerous to visit.
That included supporters like Stephen Farrell and his daughter. The pair were the first in line to see Trump and stayed awake all night outside waiting to get in. It was their first Trump rally.
Farrell said he got involved in politics over the last three years, driven by the feeling that the country is going downhill rapidly, in part from what he described as government sabotage and misspending.
“There's a lot of fear and separation in society and people need to learn to get together and solve these problems and issues,” he said. “I don't think we should send billions of dollars to Ukraine when there's hurricane victims struggling that pay taxes their whole life.”
Trump supporters said they were excited to hear him talk about his plans for the U.S. border with Mexico, immigration and economic issues.
“My top issue as a Black man is, I want the economy to be more robust than it has been for the last three-and-a-half years,” said Henry Jones, a retired Denver police officer who lives in Aurora. “Not just for Blacks, but for everybody in the country,” he said.
Tracy Kime of Colorado Springs was also at the front of the line early Friday. She said her top issue is voting integrity. She arrived Thursday afternoon and said this will be the 25th Trump rally she’s attended since 2016. She described it as a rock concert for political junkies.
“The energy, the love. I mean these people, we all take care of each other,” she explained. “Half these people just met each other yesterday and we feel like we're all family and we're all making sure we are warm and we're taken care of. I say the greatest people you'll ever meet in your life, is at a Trump rally. They'll take the shirt off their back for you.”
She was standing near 19-year-old Ben Feeney, who lives about an hour away from Aurora and said he loves that Trump is in Colorado to support people in the city, and is proud to vote for Trump in his first presidential election.
Copyright 2024 CPR News