Trump at the Gaylord says ‘Operation Aurora’ will deport millions of immigrants

AURORA | Donald Trump, in a campaign stop here Friday, called for a federal “Operation Aurora” to root out and deport undocumented immigrants not just from the city, but from all over the United States. 

The former president and current Republican presidential nominee pressed harder than ever on the false narrative — debunked by police, city management and even the mayor who helped prompt it — that Aurora has been overrun by members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang also known as TdA. His focus on the gang was so central to his speech that his campaign lined the stage with blown up mugshots of its alleged members.

“Many of these people are murderers,” he told the crowd of about 10,000 supporters at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in the far northeast corner of Aurora near Denver International Airport. “You can’t live with these people. These are stone cold killers. You could be walking down the street with your husband. You’ll both be dead. They won’t even remember they did it the following morning. You can’t live like this.”

Trump went on to falsely tie his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris to the gang, claiming that she “inflicted violence and terror” on Aurora and “infested” three apartment complexes here with TdA members. He also asserted, falsely, that:

• Emergency rooms in Denver have seen a 6,000% increase in patients because of an influx in Venezuelans and other undocumented immigrants since he was president.

• Many children in Denver can’t attend public schools because of the high numbers of immigrant students taking their spots in classrooms.

• Harris, tasked by President Joe Biden to address immigration along the southern border, has “lost 350,000 migrant children.”

• And “​​13,099 illegal aliens convicted of murder are at large” in the United States.

“They will take over your house. That’s what you’re gonna have if you don’t vote for Trump,” he said, one of several times when he referred to himself in the third-person.

 “November 5, 2024 will be liberation day in America,” he added about the upcoming election. “I will rescue Aurora.” 

At no point in Trump’s nearly 90-minute speech did he elaborate on how his proposed  “Operation Aurora” might work other than to say that undocumented immigrants “are gonna be out on their asses and they’re going to be out of this country.”

The city’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, chose not to attend Friday’s rally and slammed what he called Trump’s “mischaracterizations of our great community.” 

“The reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity in our city — and our state — have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety,” Coffman said in a statement to the news media. 

Yefferson Medina, a resident of one of the blighted apartment complexes at the center of Aurora’s recent immigrant controversy, told the Sentinel Friday that he is experiencing discrimination in his job search because he is Venezuelan.  

V Reeves, a community organizer with the Housekeys Action Network, and Aurora Councilwoman Crystal Murillo said vigilantes — presumably part of Trump’s anti-immigrant Make America Great Again movement — have been milling near the complexes threatening Venezuelans since Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky started spreading misinformation and stirring up election-season fears about those tenants in August.

Jurinsky, along with U.S. Lauren Boebert, and several other far-right Republicans, spoke Friday in the hours before senior Trump aide Stephen Miller introduced the candidate. Though Trump was 42 minutes behind schedule, the wait didn’t seem to bother the Western-hatted cowboys, yarmulke-wearing Jewish day schoolers, oil and gas lawyers and lobbyists, two off-duty Walmart greeters, truckers, and homeschooling mom the Sentinel spoke with in the audience.

One man, sporting a “Jesus is my savior. Trump is my president” T-shirt spent the wait praying for the candidate’s victory. A Trump impersonator with a bandage seemingly made from a mini-pad on his right ear passed the time by posing for photos.

Aside from the exaggerations about TdA’s presence in Aurora, Trump repeated other misinformation that has become a hallmark of his campaign. He said, falsely, that when he was president, the U.S. “had no inflation” and was energy independent. The average rate of inflation during his term was 1.9%, according to federal records. Energy independence is a controversial term, but as most economists define it, it actually happened for the first time in 40 years, this year, according to experts speaking to Newsweek magazine.

Trump played a video insinuating that the U.S. Military under the Biden-Harris administration is full of cross-dressing soldiers prone to voguing. He claimed that he’s “leading in Pennsylvania by a lot,” when most polls show either a dead heat or a slight lead for Harris in the key swing state.

Trump also claimed “we’re doing great with women voters,” whom he said, “Like me because I will be your protector.”

“The women want protection.”

Polling trends among women voters consistently show Harris leading Trump.

At several points in his speech, he mocked how Harris pronounces her first name. He called her “a threat to democracy,” said she “doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about” and “has no clue what the hell is going on.” 

“I”m telling you, there’s something wrong with her,” he said. 

“Just in case you didn’t know it,” he added, “Biden hates her.”

Trump went on to call Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “a total moron,” and mentioned his own running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, only once — more than an hour into his speech.

He had especially sharp words for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, whom he falsely accused of leading an effort late last year to disqualify him from Colorado’s ballot because of his incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol. 

“He’s a coward. He’s a fraud. He’s pathetic,” he said.

There is no evidence that Polis, a second-term Democrat, was part of that effort. Rather, Trump’s eligibility was challenged by six Colorado voters — four Republicans and two independents who portrayed him as a threat to democracy. Those plaintiffs were backed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group.

The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously in March that Trump could not be disqualified from Colorado’s ballot. 

Trump lost the state by 13 percentage points four years ago in an election he insisted Friday that he won. “We did much better by millions of votes in 2020, but we won’t discuss that,” he told the crowd. 

He recited his usual talking points that inflation, Hamas’ massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wouldn’t have happened under his watch. He drew roaring applause by pledging to “Drill, baby’ drill” domestically to promote energy independence.

And, in a nod to law enforcement, he called for “indemnifying police against any prosecutions” — an issue that’s a tender button in Aurora, whose police department has a long record of excessive force and other misconduct.