AURORA, Colo. (AP) — Donald Trump is detouring from the battleground states Friday to visit a Colorado suburb that's been in the news over illegal immigration as he drives a message that migrants are causing chaos in smaller American cities and towns, often using false or misleading claims to do so.
Trump's rally in Aurora will mark the first time ahead of the November election that either presidential campaign has visited Colorado, which reliably votes Democratic statewide.
The Republican nominee has long promised to stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and has made immigration core to his political persona since the day he launched his first campaign in 2015. Over the last few months, Trump has pinpointed specific smaller communities that have seen large arrivals of migrants, with tensions flaring locally over resources and some longtime residents expressing distrust about sudden demographic changes.
Aurora entered the spotlight in August when a video circulated showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan migrants. Trump has claimed extensively that Venezuelan gangs are taking over buildings, even though authorities say that was a single block of the suburb near Denver, and the area is again safe.
Trump planned to announce that as president he'd launch "Operation Aurora" to focus on deporting members of the Venezeulan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA, according to a senior campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview Trump's speech. The violent gang traces its origins more than a decade to an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals.
Trump planned to repeat his pledge to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen who is from a country that the U.S. is at war with.
In July, the Biden administration issued a sanction against the gang, placing it alongside MS-13 from El Salvador and the Mafia-styled Camorra from Italy on a list of transnational criminal organizations and offering $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three leaders.
At the venue where he was appearing on Friday, chants of “Trump!” and guttural cries of excitement began before the sun rose and continued throughout the morning. Attendees trickled into the vast conference hall, curated specially for Trump’s visit to Aurora: On stage, posters displayed mug shots of people in prison-orange with descriptions including “Illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela.”
Stephen Miller, a former top aide who is expected to take a senior role in the White House if Trump wins, pointed to the posters as he addressed the crowd ahead of Trump's appearance.
“Look at all these photos around me," Miller said. “Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you were raised with? Are these the neighbors that you want in your city?” The crowd roared ”no" in reply.
Some of Colorado’s Democratic leaders accused Trump and other Republicans of overstating problems in Aurora.
“What is occurring is minimal and isolated. And to be clear, it’s never acceptable, right? We never say any level is acceptable,” said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. “But it’s not a surge. It’s not a change. There is no takeover of any part of this city, of any apartment complex. It has not happened. It is a lie.”
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also have spread falsehoods about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they said Haitian immigrants were accused of stealing and eating pets.
"It’s like an invasion from within, and we’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country, and we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora,” Trump said last month in a news conference in California.
While Ohio and Colorado are not competitive in the presidential race, the Republican message on immigration is intended for states that are. Vance campaigned recently in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a city of 70,000 that has resettled refugees from Africa and Asia, and touted Trump's plan to ramp up deportations. He argues smaller communities have been "overrun" by immigrants taxing local resources.
Trump has vowed to deport not only "criminals," a promise he shares with Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival, but also Haitians living legally in Springfield and even people he has denigrated as "pro-Hamas radicals" protesting on college campuses. Trump has said he would revoke the temporary protected status that allows Haitians to stay in the U.S. because of widespread poverty and violence in their home nation.
Trump repeatedly faults Harris and President Joe Biden for allowing record high numbers of arrivals, saying that is fueling violent crime, though numbers show a continued downward trend after a coronavirus pandemic-era crime spike.
On the campaign trail, Trump uses specific cases of murders or attacks where suspects are immigrants who arrived in the country illegally. He has referred to them as "animals," and earlier this week suggested that those suspected in homicide cases "have bad genes."
Chris Haynes, an associate professor of political science at University of New Haven, who wrote a book about public opinion on immigration policies and has studied the former president’s messaging on immigration, says that is part of what he calls “episodic branding." It may prompt some moderate voters to reassess who they want to support, he said.
“What’s worked for him from the very beginning is to vilify immigrants, but also to try to make people feel like they’re a threat,” said Haynes, saying some of the rhetoric also appeals to low propensity voters that are part of his base.
Harris, for her part, was wrapping up a three-day western swing with a campaign event Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona. She also participated virtually in a White House briefing with President Biden on the recovery effort from hurricanes Milton and Helene.
“The bottom line is this: We are in this for the long haul,” said Harris as she sought to reassure those who endured losses from the hurricane that they would get help from the government.
Biden went after Trump, saying that he's “just the biggest mouth” for disinformation about the government's response to the hurricanes. The president added that the disinformation is a "permanent state of being for some extreme people," but that he believes the country as a whole wants facts and bipartisan cooperation to address natural disasters.
Just as Biden did before he abandoned his reelection bid, Democrat Harris has tacked to the right on immigration, presenting herself as a candidate who can be tough on policing the border, which is perceived as one of her biggest vulnerabilities.
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Gomez reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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