Though Denver suburbs don't share the city's sanctuary city policy, the influx of immigrants into the Mile High City has spilled over into the city's outskirts, and now nearby residents are facing an unprecedented wave of activity by a notorious Venezuelan prison gang.
Officials in Aurora, about nine miles east of Denver, told Fox News Digital that the Tren de Aragua gang has established a strong foothold in the city, taking over apartment complexes and fueling violent crime and sex trafficking.
“There are now multiple compounds under the control of gangs where staff are being beaten, intimidated and their families are being threatened. [and] “There are a number of complexes that don't have any staff on the premises,” Aurora City Councilman Daniel Jurinski said. “These complexes are run by the Tren de Aragua gang.”
“When someone leaves out of fear or whatever, they start brokering the apartment themselves. They go in, they take their own photos, and then within a few hours we hear that a Venezuelan family is moving in.”
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Migrants carrying their belongings walk through a tent as city officials close down an illegal tent camp in Denver, Colorado, on January 3, 2024. (Trevor Hughes, Trevor Hughes/USA Today Network)
“Parts of the city are completely under the control of these gangs and it's being downplayed by the local media,” she said. “I believe people's lives are being politicized and nothing is being done to help the American people who are trapped under the control of these gangs.”
Jurinski told Fox News Digital that calls for emergency services have increased, especially with police departments being short-staffed.
“We're getting a lot more emails from residents and business owners asking for help than we've ever had before. [about gang activity] “It's a type of crime you don't normally hear about in our city,” she said.
Alleged members of Tren de Aragua are accused of a series of crimes that have attracted national attention, including the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the shooting deaths of two New York Police Department officers during an arrest in June.
Party leaders recently gave their members across the country “authority” to shoot and kill law enforcement officers who attempt to disrupt criminal activity, even in Denver.
Denver city officials were caught on camera pleading with migrants to leave and head to Chicago or New York, saying: “You will suffer.”
The images, published in a Customs and Border Protection intelligence bulletin, show Tren de Aragua's tattoos and identifying information. (Fox News)
Tren de Aragua's leader, Jonardi Jose Pacheco Chirino, nicknamed “Galeta,” Spanish for “Cookie,” was arrested after brutally beating a man in an Aurora apartment the gang had occupied. New York PostThe suspect was arrested again in July for a shooting at the same complex that left two people injured, the outlet reported.
A Department of Homeland Security source told The Washington Post that Pacheco Chirino has been detained and released at least twice since crossing the southern border in 2022.
Denver, a city of about 710,000 people, leads the nation in migrant arrivals per capita, with more than 40,000 people arriving from the southern border since 2022, according to the Colorado Sun.
The city has spent an estimated $68 million to provide them with assistance and has cut emergency services, while Jurinski and other members of the Aurora City Council passed a 7-3 resolution vowing to provide no assistance or resources to migrants coming to the city.
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Denver, a city of about 710,000 people, has seen more than 40,000 arrivals from the southern border since 2022, making it the nation's leader in migrant arrivals per capita. (Chet Strange/AFP)
“We're not going to be complicit in this migration crisis,” Jurinski told Fox News' “America's Newsroom.”
Douglas County Commissioner Abe Leyden said the immediate ripple effect on neighboring communities was clear when Denver's bill passed in 2017, codifying the city's resistance to cooperating with federal immigration enforcement agencies into law and followed by numerous efforts to help immigrants and asylum seekers.
“Just recently, there was an influx of 40,000 immigrants. [to Denver]”Douglas County sounded the alarm and said, 'common sense tells us there's no way this isn't going to have a significant impact on the resources of the Denver metropolitan area,' and that's what happened,” Leydon said.
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Leydon said that as part of an effort to curb the growing rate of migration, the county passed an ordinance banning unscheduled bus stops in the area and not allowing “buses from San Antonio to drop off migrants.”
But efforts to curb the influx have been hampered by a Colorado law passed in 2019, HB19-1124, which prohibits local governments from communicating directly with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
As a result, Douglas County and five other Colorado counties banded together to sue the state, alleging that the law violates the U.S. Supremacy Clause, which prohibits states from violating federal law, and the Intergovernmental Relations Clause of the Colorado Constitution, which prohibits laws that prevent local governments from cooperating/contracting with the federal government.
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Authorities say Aurora, a city of about 390,000 people, is the Colorado headquarters of the Tren de Aragua gang. (Kevorkh Djansezian/Getty Images)
“Local law enforcement wants to be able to communicate with local immigration authorities,” Leydon said. “We've been receiving reports that there's definitely an increase in property crime, assaults, human trafficking, and also issues specific to the drug cartels coming out of Venezuela.”
Despite being unable to contact federal immigration authorities, an ICE detention center is located in the city of Aurora, where Jurinski said it is “maxed out.”
“Every week they open the back door and let hundreds of people escape,” Jurinski said.
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“This isn't a Denver or Aurora issue. This is a national issue,” Joe Gamaldi, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Police, told Fox News Digital.
“Gangs from all over South America are coming in and establishing a foothold in our country,” he said Monday. “We've taught criminals that they can commit crimes with impunity, and then we're all surprised when that's exactly what they do.”
In Aurora, making a dent in the problem would require “a big investment in our gang unit to put gangs behind bars,” he said, but the city “is going to need a criminal justice system that's going to prosecute these guys and get them deported.”
“Police officers do their job. They catch criminals and put them behind bars. The question is whether they stay behind bars or get deported. Don't give them a sweet deal. This is not rocket science. Anyone who commits robbery with a gun should be put in prison for 20, 25 years.”
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Chris Swecker, a former FBI chief of criminal investigations, called the influx of gang members “predictable and preventable” and called it the “Mariel Boatlift 2.0,” referring to the mass migration of Cubans to the United States in the 1980s and comparing it to the rise of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.
“When this problem arose, I would have deployed agents along the border to question everyone who was not Mexican and crossed the border, and we would have had informants,” Swecker said of possible ways to combat the nationwide problem. “The problem is being creative and confident enough to assign the issues.”
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“At this point, federal agencies should get involved,” he added. “The FBI needs to get involved with the ATF and the DEA, share intelligence and treat this as an international criminal issue.”
