Donald Trump intensified his politics of nativism and xenophobia on Friday, announcing a sweeping plan to deport Venezuelans he claimed had “contaminated” a once peaceful city in Colorado.
The Republican presidential candidate held a campaign rally in Aurora at a stage decorated with posters featuring photos of people in orange prison uniforms with descriptions including “illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela.”
Trump told the crowd: “I am announcing today that upon taking office, we will have an ‘Operation Aurora’ at the federal level to expedite the removal of these savage gangs.” He vowed to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country with which the US is at war.
Related: The Trump campaign calls for greater security amid fears of an assassination attempt on Iran
“We will send elite teams from Ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]Border Patrol and federal law enforcement officials must hunt down, arrest and deport every illegal alien gang member until there are none left in this country,” he continued as the crowd roared in approval.
If they return to the US, Trump said, they will automatically serve 10 years in prison without parole. “I hereby call for the death penalty for any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer. With your vote we will achieve complete and total victory over these sadistic monsters. It’s going to happen very quickly.”
The meeting marked a detour for Trump, as Colorado is not a battleground state and will certainly vote for his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris. But recent events presented him with an opportunity to leverage a whirlwind of local rumors to drive home his anti-immigrant message.
Aurora, a city of about 340,000 near Denver, made headlines in August when a video circulated showing armed men walking through an apartment building where Venezuelan immigrants lived. Trump amplified the narrative, falsely portraying the city as overrun by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA.
Authorities say the incident occurred on one block and the area is safe again, noting that local crime is actually declining. Aurora’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, called Trump’s claims “grossly exaggerated” and insisted, “The story is not true in any respect.”
TDA traces its origins back more than a decade to a notorious prison. In July, the Biden administration sanctioned the gang, placing it alongside El Salvador’s MS-13 and Italy’s mafia-style Camorra on a list of transnational criminal organizations, and offering $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three leaders. .
During Friday’s meeting, Trump played a series of news clips, accompanied by dramatic music, detailing TDA’s crimes and the murder of U.S. citizens by undocumented immigrants, as well as some apparently evasive answers from Harris, the vice president, which Trump labeled a “criminal” and the “worst border czar” in the country’s history.
“My message today is very simple,” he said. “No one who inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris inflicted on this community can ever become President of the United States.”
The former president promised that November 5, when the elections are held, will be “liberation day,” prompting chants of “USA! USA!” from the crowd.
“I will save Aurora and every city that has been invaded and conquered. These cities have been conquered and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country and we will be very, very effective at doing so. It’s going to happen very, very soon. I’m going to get them the hell out of our country.”
Trump threw red meat at his base, later adding: “We talk a lot about Venezuela, because Aurora is really infected by Venezuela, but they come from all countries.”
The comment recalled dehumanizing language from the past in which Trump claimed undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and suggested earlier this week that those suspected of murder have “bad genes.”
Similarly, 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 on stage on Friday as he addressed the crowd ahead of Trump’s appearance.
“Look at all these pictures around me,” Miller said. “Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you want in your city?” The crowd roared ‘no’ in response.
The ex-president has long made immigration his signature issue and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in US history when he returns to the White House. In recent months he has focused on specific smaller communities that have seen significant influxes of migrants, with local tensions flaring over resources and some longtime residents expressing doubts about sudden demographic changes.
More than 40,000 immigrants have arrived in the Denver metro area over the past two years, including many Venezuelan families fleeing poverty and violence. But Colorado’s Democratic leaders accuse Trump and other Republicans of exaggerating the problems in Aurora.
Congressman Jason Crow told the Associated Press: “What is happening is minimal and isolated. And just to be clear, it’s never acceptable, right? We never say that any level is acceptable. But it is not an increase. It’s not a change. There is no takeover of any part of this city, of any apartment complex. It didn’t happen. It’s a lie.”
Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, have also spread falsehoods about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they say Haitian immigrants were accused of stealing and eating pets. The disinformation campaign led to bomb threats, school closures and forced evacuations.
Trump has said he would revoke temporary protected status that allows Haitians to remain in the U.S. because of widespread poverty and violence in their home country.
Democrats have condemned Trump for undermining a bipartisan border security bill in the Senate that could have neutralized immigration as a problem. Harris told a Univision town hall in Nevada on Thursday: “He would rather address a problem than solve a problem.”
