We can argue all we want about who won the Harris-Trump debate on Tuesday, but there’s no question who lost: Aurora.
The people of Aurora were slandered in the service of a racist lie that Trump gleefully spread in the final weeks of his presidential campaign.
I’m sure you’ve heard this one. The Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua supposedly is running the city.
Trump said it early in the debate. “You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns ….”
The Colorado Republican Party shamelessly repurposed the lie in a fundraising email, saying that “Colorado is under violent attack” and “Venezuelan gangs have taken over Aurora.”
Meanwhile in Aurora, the mayor, stalwart Republican Mike Coffman, is trying to reassure his community while still appearing sufficiently obsequious to his political tribe. Still, it’s safe to say he’s not taking orders from Venezuelan gang members no matter what the party goons are saying on X.
Aurora Police Chief Heather Morris did her best to calm the hysteria, too, holding a news conference to say there is no evidence that the gang has taken over an apartment building or anything else. Police have identified 10 gang members involved in criminal activity in the area and six were in custody.
In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston has said the city is working with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation and will not tolerate any gang activity. “We will hunt them down, we will find them, we will arrest them and we will deport them,” he said.
So, what’s really happening in Colorado’s third-largest city?
Denverite reporter Kyle Harris ventured into the very apartment building that the right-wing trolls insist was under the control of brazen gun-wielding Venezuelan gang members. Instead he found families with small children struggling to survive in abject squalor at the hands of criminal slumlords from Brooklyn, N.Y.
One resident told Denverite of infestations of mice, cockroaches and bedbugs in his apartment where the stove doesn’t work and his sink is plugged. He said his landlord, CBZ Management, has ignored his requests for repairs as well as those of his neighbors who live in similarly appalling conditions.
Other tenants in the CBZ apartment complexes told The Sun that they, too, suffered with unsafe living conditions and with piles of trash that hadn’t been picked up in two months. On top of that, now they were faced with virulent racism as a result of the lie about the gang running the city.
Immigrants and all people of color in Aurora are facing suspicion, hostility and threats from militant Trump supporters and others who have been manipulated into believing the newcomers are all criminals.
The migrant families are feeling terrorized. Their children are having nightmares.
The Sun reported on one migrant from Venezuela who has sold homemade arepas and empanadas from his apartment to make money to pay his rent. He was falsely accused of being a gang member in a post on social media that included his phone number.
Unsurprisingly, the post sparked a threatening text to the man’s phone. “I hope you know the Colorado veterans are building a militia with more fire power then you guys could ever imagine,” it said.
Trump himself has made suggestions of violence against immigrants. At a rally in Wisconsin, he repeated the lie about gangs taking over Aurora and added, “Getting them out will be a bloody story.”
When asked in the debate if his plan to deport 11 million people would involve police going door-to-door, Trump said, “Yeah.”
The influx of refugees and desperate people unquestionably has created challenges for Denver and Aurora. Nearly 43,000 migrants have come to the area in the past year, though many have moved on to other cities. Securing housing and social services for those who remain has been a heavy lift. Helping hundreds of young children adjust to life in new communities and new schools strains already stressed public school systems.
Crime has not been the problem, however. In fact, crime in Aurora dropped 20% in the first eight months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
The facts don’t matter to those who seek to exploit fear and xenophobia though, which brings us back to the debate.
Trump’s fabrications and hate-filled rhetoric were nothing new — except maybe for the line about Vice President Kamala Harris wanting to do “transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.” I mean, who even thinks this stuff up?
But this time one of his outrageous lies hit dangerously close to home.
And while Colorado cities are tracking down and arresting any gang members who actually are here, they must go further. They must ensure that everyone knows the truth and vulnerable families aren’t targeted by the angry mobs incited by the dehumanizing lies.
If the Trump mobs once again are mobilized, it will be a different story entirely in Aurora — an honest-to-goodness real case of violent criminal gangs taking over the city, all for the sake of cynical political gain.
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