AURORA – Former President Donald Trump used Colorado as a campaign prop Friday to attack Democrats on immigration and unveil a new national deportation plan focused on gang members, calling for the death penalty to be leveled against anyone living in the U.S. illegally who kills an American citizen.
During a packed rally in the state, where he’s likely to lose by a wide margin in November, he blasted Gov. Jared Polis and exaggerated the influence of a Venezuelan gang in Aurora.
“I will rescue Aurora and rescue every town that’s been invaded and conquered,” said Trump, who was flanked by large mugshots of Venezuelan gang members arrested in Aurora as he spoke to a sold-out crowd at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Conference Center. “These towns have been conquered.”
Aurora has not been conquered.
There have been a handful of members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang arrested in Aurora, but claims that they have taken control have either been grossly hyperbolic or totally debunked. “Based on our initial investigative work, we believe reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated,” Aurora police said in a statement.
Those facts didn’t stop Trump from painting a bleak picture of Colorado’s third most populous city, using the handful of examples of issues involving Venezuelan migrants in Aurora to suggest it has been overrun. His visit reignited the national, negative spotlight on Aurora that had mostly faded since he first invoked the city in his September debate with Harris.
Trump said during a roughly 90-minute speech that gang members who are deported and return to the U.S. without authorization should face an automatic 10-year prison sentence. He called that “Operation Aurora,” vowing to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a law adopted in 1798 that gives the president power to deport people from a countries the U.S. is at war with.
“Think of where I could be, though,” he said. “I could take our beautiful first lady all over the world. I could be in Monte Carlo. And where am I? Right now, I’m in Aurora. And that’s where I want to be. We’re going to solve this problem.”
The Gaylord Rockies, just down the road from Denver International Airport, is far from the parts of Aurora where a handful of members of the Venezuelan gang TdA were said to be active. In fact, the sprawling hotel is in a small pocket of the city that is surrounded by Denver on three sides.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican who lost his 2018 congressional reelection bid in large part because of Trump’s unpopularity in Colorado, said he was “disappointed that the former president did not get to experience more of our city for himself.”
“The reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity in our city – and our state – have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety,” Coffman said in a statement. “The city and state have not been ‘taken over’ or ‘invaded’ or ‘occupied’ by migrant gangs. The incidents that have occurred in Aurora, a city of 400,000 people, have been limited to a handful of specific apartment complexes, and our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns and will continue to do so.”
Trump also used his visit to Colorado to air grievances against those in the state who unsuccessfully tried to prevent him from appearing on the presidential ballot this year in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. He falsely said “it was Polis who led the move to take me off the ballot,” when in reality it was a group of unaffiliated and Republican voters in the state backed by a liberal-leaning political nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
The governor did not have a role in the case. Still, Trump called him “a coward.”
“He’s a fraud. He’s pathetic,” Trump said of Polis.
Although polling shows Trump in a close race against Vice President Kamala Harris nationally, recent polls have shown him trailing Harris in Colorado by as much as 15 percentage points.
In 2020, Trump lost in Colorado to Joe Biden by 13.5 percentage points. Republicans have not won a statewide race in Colorado since 2016.
That didn’t stop some at the rally from dreaming big, including Trump and his campaign team.
“In just 25 days, Colorado can shock the world and send Donald J. Trump back to the White House,” Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller told the crowd, which erupted in cheers.
Speeches started about an hour before Trump took the stage and featured a number of top Colorado Republicans, including state Rep. Gabe Evans, who is running in Colorado’s highly competitive 8th Congressional District.
“We can flip this seat, and we can make sure that Donald Trump has a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representative when he is reelected,” said Evans, who has been endorsed by Trump.
Evans otherwise stayed away from mentioning Trump in his speech.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Windsor, also addressed the crowd, claiming that “Venezuelan gangs are extorting and harassing people.”
“Just enjoy your carjacking on your way to the grocery store,” she joked.
Other notable Colorado speakers included:
- Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who directed the crowd to “boo” the media and led rally goers in a “Fight! Fight! Fight!” chant.
- U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez, R-Elizabeth.
- Conservative commentator and activist Jeff Crank. “In Colorado we have an out-of-control government making us a sanctuary state,” he said. “… We have to take back Colorado.”
- Former Denver Bronco Derek Wolfe. “Get your votes in early,” he said. “They’re going to cheat.”
- Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly, a Republican.
- John Tiegen, a military veteran who, as a security consultant, helped defend the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi. He’s a Coloradan.
- Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, a Republican, who in her speech declared that Aurora is not a sanctuary city. “Denver had better start to keep to themselves,” she said. “The time of Denver controlling the entire state? These days are over.”
Cindy Romero, who captured a video of armed men at her Aurora apartment complex that put the national spotlight on Venezuelan migrants in Aurora, also spoke at the rally. She moved out of the complex after recording the video on her doorbell camera.
“It’s just a matter of time before this gets to your communities,” she said, fighting back tears.
Romero, who Trump brought on stage and praised during his speech, said she’ll vote for Trump in November.
Thousands of Trump supporters wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats descended on the Gaylord Rockies to hear the former president speak. They arrived hours ahead of his appearance, clamoring for a chance to see Trump in Colorado, where he hasn’t made a public appearance in nearly five years.
Michelle McFarland, a 59-year-old unaffiliated voter from Evergreen, was attending her second Trump rally. She said too many people have been consumed by what she called “Trump derangement syndrome.”
“He’s not just for Republicans,” she said. “He’s for every American.”
McFarland said while she voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, she’s not opposed to supporting Democrats. She said she voted for Democratic U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, in 2022 and will be backing her again this year. But she thinks Trump is a better option than Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m sure she’s a nice lady, but I don’t want her to run our country,” McFarland said of Harris.
Melanie Ross, a 62-year-old Commerce City Republican, said she came to the rally to hear Trump talk about immigration.
“When Mike Coffman tried to buttercup and make it seem like there wasn’t a problem, that was wrong,” she said of Aurora’s mayor.
Guy Kelley, a Loveland Republican wearing a T-shirt that read “Just a proud dad who doesn’t raise liberals,” said he wanted Trump to “give us all hope.”
Top Colorado Democrats spoke in opposition to Trump ahead of his arrival, appearing on TV to blast the former president and holding a news conference in Aurora to push back on his characterization of the city.
“Aurora is safer than it’s been, and, of course, we want to continue to work to make it safer,” said Polis, flanked by Colorado’s Democratic U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet. “We hope that we can turn a lemon into lemonade and really show how incredible Aurora is in the national limelight – a great place to live, to raise kids, to retire, to grow a business.”
Polis added that he hopes Harris visits Colorado.
“Coloradans are firmly in the camp of Kamala Harris,” he said.
Along the entrance road to the Gaylord, a crowd of 100-plus protesters shouted a message of their own at the long line of Trump supporters waiting to enter.
Immigrants are welcome here, they said. Donald Trump is not.
Katie Leonard, 30 of Aurora, said Trump’s rhetoric has had real consequences for immigrants in her community – particularly those who live at the apartment complex that has drawn the national attention and right-wing vitriol.
“The people we work with at those buildings are suffering,” said Leonard, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which helped organize the protest. “They’re afraid to be evicted, and now they’re receiving death threats.
“They’re workers, right? They come home and they have to deal with this absolute hate,” she said.
On the sidewalk across the street, Steve Baxter, a retired Presbyterian minister, sat in a lawn chair holding a simple white sign that said only “Liar.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this,” Baxter, 81, said of attending a protest. “I was motivated to do this because I believe in facts and the truth. And I’m afraid of what might happen to this country if Trump is elected again.”
After the rally, immigrant rights groups held a news conference at one of the apartments.
But while the tenants there said they’re worried about their homes and afraid for their families – it’s not because of gang violence.
They fear the visits to their street from armed right-wing social media influencers pledging to eliminate the gang problem.
They worry about feeding their families and affording the rent, as employers shy away from hiring Venezuelans after they became an election year talking point.
And they worry about the moldy, unsafe conditions they’re living in.
Long before the apartment become national news, Crystal Murillo, an Aurora councilwoman who represents the district, said she had been visiting the complex for over a year to try to help the tenants there secure repairs from their out of state landlord.
The work, she said, is not done.
“It should have never got to this point,” Murillo said. “There’s something broken that needs to be fixed about how the city does business” and regulates landlords.
Others marveled at seeing their community become a poster child for election year fearmongering.
“I have people calling me from all over,” said state Rep. Mandy Lindsay, a Democrat who grew up in the area. “‘What’s going on in Aurora?’”
“It’s just a regular city,” she replies.
The Aurora rally was Trump’s first public appearance in Colorado since February 2020, when he held a rally in Colorado Springs with then-U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican.
This summer, Trump attended a private campaign fundraiser in Aspen, an event that was cohosted by Larry Mizel and his wife, Carol. Larry Mizel is a Republican megadonor and Israel booster who lives in Denver and is founder and executive chairman of MDC Holdings, a home construction company headquartered in Denver.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, visited Colorado on Tuesday and appeared at a private fundraiser hosted by Larry Mizel and Gardner.
Colorado county clerks began mailing ballots to voters Friday. Election Day is Nov. 5.
