Donald Trump visits Aurora, Colorado, pushing misleading narratives about migrants

Former President Donald Trump visited Aurora, Colorado, for a campaign rally on Friday where he continued to push misleading narratives about the city's migrant population.

"My message today is very simple," Trump told the crowd. "No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the president of the United States. We're not going to let it happen."

In the final weeks of his campaign, Trump has continued to focus on the issue of immigration, escalating his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants he often paints as violent criminals.

"I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered," Trump said. "These towns 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 in doing it. It's going to happen very, very fast."

Specifically, the former president has used Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, to emphasize his point, both examples stemming from viral online stories he's been quick to promote, often without proper context.

His false narratives on Aurora began last month when a video of armed individuals roaming around an apartment complex in Aurora went viral among right-wing social media influencers.

Trump, who has shared that video himself, has repeatedly claimed that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have "taken over" apartment complexes and "overrun" the city, despite the Aurora Police Department refuting allegations of the apartment complex being run by a Venezuelan gang.

Aurora's Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has directly refuted Trump's claims, saying in a press conference late last month that, "This is not an immigration issue. This is a crime issue."

"We are not, by any means, overtaken by Venezuelan gangs," he added.

The City of Aurora also provided clarity on the situation in a post on its official X account, stating that while there was a concern about a "small" presence of the Venezuelan gang members in Aurora, the city is taking the situation seriously. The city stressed that Aurora is a "safe community" and that reports of gang members are "isolated to a handful of problem properties alone."

Mike Coffman, the Republican mayor of Aurora, has also pushed back on Trump's "grossly exaggerated" claims.

"Former President Trump's visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs," Coffman said.

Still, Trump has continued to amplify these debunked stories to his supporters throughout the country as a rallying cry as he attacks the immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration.

At his second campaign stop on Friday in Reno, Nevada, Trump continued to repeat baseless and debunked rhetoric on a Venezuelan gang taking over apartment complexes in Aurora even after the city's Republican mayor denounced his rhetoric, saying his comments "unfairly hurt the city's identity and sense of safety." 

In Reno, the former president again called the U.S. an "occupied country" and the situation in Aurora a "full-blown invasion."

"It is a full blown invasion. Armed Venezuelan gang members storming an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado," Trump said.

In the press release announcing Friday's event, the Trump campaign described Aurora as a "war zone," arguing people were crossing the border and descending upon the city "bringing chaos and fear with them."

Similarly, Trump has repeatedly amplified debunked claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield.

Trump's visit is one that he has been wanting to make for a while to bring more attention to the country's immigration policies. At recent campaign rallies, Trump has become more vocal about his desire to visit Aurora and Springfield.

While the Republican mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, discouraged visits from candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has presented the trip as a learning opportunity for the former president.

"The reality is, Donald Trump continues to tell economically damaging and hurtful lies about Aurora," Polis said in a statement to ABC affiliate Denver7 amid ongoing discussions of a potential visit. "If former President Trump does visit, he will find the city of Aurora is a strong, vibrant, and diverse city of more than 400,000 hardworking Coloradans and a wonderful place to live, run a business, raise a family, and retire."

Trump has launched attacks on the local and state officials on the campaign trail, often making baseless claims that Aurora Mayor Coffman and Gov. Polis are "petrified," saying Coffman "doesn't know what the hell he's doing" -- and even claiming they don't want to raise the immigration issue because they want to be "politically correct."

Campaigning in Uniondale, New York, last month, Trump, while declaring that he planned to visit Aurora and Springfield soon, suggested that he might not make it back out after his visiting those places due to unspecified crime.

"I'm going to go there in the next two weeks. I'm going to Springfield, and I'm going to Aurora," Trump said in Uniondale. "You may never see me again, but that's OK. Got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? 'Well, he never got out of Springfield.'"

Trump's visit to Aurora also came as he's pledged on the campaign trail to begin his promise of mass deportations in Springfield and Aurora.

"We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country," Trump said as he took reporter questions in Los Angeles, California, last month. "And we're going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado]."

"We're going to take those violent people, and we're going to ship them back to their country, and if they come back in, they're going to pay a hell of a price," Trump also said.

Springfield has many Haitian residents who are either legally authorized to live and work in the U.S. or are protected from expulsion by law.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is a Republican.