Aurora mayor blames ‘bad’ Biden border policies for Venezuelan gang problem
Mayor Mike Coffman of Aurora, Colorado, said the Biden-Harris border policies are to blame for the criminal gang problem that has shone a negative spotlight on his largely safe community.
Although Coffman stressed that the criminal element affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in Aurora is largely isolated to specific apartment complexes and the problem doesn't affect the vast majority of the city's over 400,000 residents, he blames the federal government, in conjunction with nonprofit organizations, that decided to house a large number of Venezuelan migrants in low-income apartments in his city.
"The city of Aurora took a position early on that we were not going to participate in the migrant crisis. We were not going to provide taxpayer support, and we were not even going to be a conduit for federal dollars to come in to provide assistance," Coffman said in an interview with Fox31 Denver on Thursday.
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"This is not our problem; this is a problem created by the federal government at the border with bad policy. So, the federal government needs to solve this problem, not the city of Aurora. These people did not go there on their own; somebody put them there."
Despite the criminal gang takeover of at least three apartment complexes making national and international headlines, Coffman stressed Aurora is a safe place to live.
In a video update posted on X early Saturday morning, Aurora Police Department Interim Chief Heather Morris said officers were speaking with residents at one apartment complex and claimed that "gang members have not taken over" based on what residents have told them.
Morris acknowledged that there was some gang activity in the complex, and officers asked residents if they were being ordered to pay the gang members. She said officers were on hand to assure residents they were going to "investigate" and "address" criminal activity at the complex.
In his interview with Fox31 Denver, Coffman said his hope is that authorities can remove the gang members from the three apartment complexes without having to force all of the residents to leave.
As a Marine who served in Iraq, Coffman said: "You have an enemy that is inside a population that is intimidated by them. And so, the challenge is getting people to cooperate to identify them" and using film footage to identify them and "get them out."
"Venezuela, unfortunately, is a failed state under a socialist dictator, and people are leaving. I think about one-third of the population has left," he continued. "Unlike immigration we've had in the past, in our Venezuelan community that has been here, where they had sponsors, where they had family members, they had resources, and they were educated," the city is now getting people who "poured over the border."
"Typically, you walk across illegally, you get arrested, you declare political asylum, you're given humanitarian parole until your case can be adjudicated, which can take months, years," Coffman explained. "It's a broader problem than the gangs that you have people who are here without resources that can't apply for a work permit until they are here for six months."
Despite confirmation from the mayor, police reports and video showing members of the Venezuelan gang brandishing guns and harassing residents in at least one apartment complex, Colorado's Democrat Gov. Jared Polis said this week that such claims are fiction.
Polis pushed back on statements made by Coffman and Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who said the apartments are being taken over by a criminal element.
"The governor has already let the mayor know that the state is ready to support the local police department with assistance from state troopers and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation if needed," spokesperson Shelby Wieman told the New York Post. "But, according to police intelligence, this purported invasion is largely a feature of Danielle Jurinsky's imagination."
Aurora resident Cindy Romero, who claimed to live in one of the apartment buildings housing the Venezuelan migrants, credited Jurinsky for getting her out of the apartment complex where she felt unsafe due to gang activity. In response to the governor's claims that the criminal activity was the makings of the councilwoman's "imagination," Romero told Fox News host John Robert: "Polis wouldn't last five minutes on that property."
Wieman added that the governor's office is "ready to assist" police in securing the apartment complexes if criminal gangs have taken over.
Late Friday night, the city of Aurora released a statement on its social media accounts blasting local and national media for reporting what it described as "misleading information" about residents' safety in the city.
The city reiterated the mayor's Thursday statement stressing that Aurora is a "safe community."
"Media have conflated and considerably exaggerated incidents that are isolated to a handful of problem properties alone. Yes, we are concerned that there is a small Tren de Aragua (TdA) presence in Aurora and we have been taking it seriously."
The statement continued: "We have responded. We have made arrests. We will continue to make arrests. We will continue to address the problems that the absentee, out-of-state owners of these properties have allowed to fester unchecked. Aurora will aggressively pursue all actions available under city code and criminal statute."
