Former President Trump visited a Colorado city Friday that he has decried as a “war zone” to depict migrants coming into the country as a grave threat to American communities, seeking to elevate immigration as a key election issue against Vice President Harris.
Trump held a rally in Aurora, a city of about 400,000 people who the former president helped launch into the spotlight by amplifying stories of Venezuelan gang activity there involving the group Tren de Aragua.
While state and local officials, including Aurora’s Republican mayor, have pushed back on the narrative that the city is overrun by migrants, Trump spoke to a crowd of thousands about the dangers he said have been posed by the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
“My message today is very simple. No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become president of the United States,” Trump said, flanked by two signs that read “Deport Illegals Now” and “End Migrant Crime.”
Trump announced what he dubbed “Operation Aurora,” vowing to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target migrants in the U.S. illegally who are members of gangs like Tren de Aragua and have them removed from the United States.
He said Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and federal law enforcement would be used to “hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member.”
Aurora was catapulted into the spotlight last month by a viral video showing a group of armed men at an apartment complex shortly before an individual was shot there. Many on the right claimed the video was evidence a Venezuelan gang had taken over the complex, though local media reported police were unable to confirm if any of the individuals were linked to a gang.
The former president used dark, nativist rhetoric to drum up fear around the migrants entering the U.S. during the Biden administration, claiming towns had been “conquered” and that the president and vice president were importing “an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World.”
“[Harris] has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens,” Trump said. “No place is it more evident than right here.”
Trump invited Aurora resident Cindy Romero onto the stage, who the former president said felt unsafe in her community and locked her door with four separate locks. Romero told the crowd that electing Trump would help residents “take the state back over.”
Before Trump took the stage, senior adviser Stephen Miller suggested migrants have changed the fabric of communities like Aurora and argued Americans should feel comfortable speaking out about it.
“They want you to think that you have to justify why you want to send the migrants out? No, no, no, they have to justify why the hell they’re bringing the migrants in,” Miller, the architect of many of Trump’s immigration policies, told the crowd.
Gov. Jared Polis (D), speaking earlier Friday at an event hosted by the Harris campaign, noted crime was down in Aurora over the past two years.
“Former President Trump doesn’t seem to care who he hurts with his rhetoric,” Polis said. “We hope we can turn lemons into lemonade and really show how incredible Aurora is in the national limelight.”
Colorado has not backed a Republican presidential candidate since 2004, and Trump is not likely to win the state in November. But Friday’s rally was more broadly about elevating the topic of immigration and portraying Harris as weak on the border.
A Wall Street Journal poll published Friday of 2,100 registered voters in the seven battleground states likely to decide November’s election found 52 percent said Trump is best able to handle immigration and border security, compared to 36 percent who said Harris was better on the issue.
Trump has pledged to carry out mass deportations of those in the country illegally if he is elected in November, and he has signaled he would revoke protected status for certain groups, such as Haitian migrants.
He has attacked Harris as the “border czar,” a reference to her role in addressing the root causes of migration from Central American nations. And Trump has repeatedly highlighted instances of violent crimes allegedly committed by individuals who entered the country illegally.
He has also gotten into hot water over his rhetoric attacking immigrants. He previously said some entering the country were “poisoning the blood” of the nation, comments that drew comparison to Nazi Germany. And while on the debate stage with Harris, he spread debunked claims about Haitians in an Ohio town abducting and eating pets.
Harris and her campaign have repeatedly attacked Trump for sinking a border security bill negotiated in the Senate by lawmakers in both parties. The former president urged Republicans to oppose the bill, signaling it would be seen as a political win for Democrats.
“He would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” Harris said Thursday at a Univision town hall in Nevada.