AURORA | John Fabbricatore remembers when he met Jason Crow.
It was 2019, Crow’s first year in Congress, and Fabbricatore at that time led the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Colorado. Responding to complaints about unsafe and dehumanizing conditions, Crow was pushing for transparency and accountability in the privately run GEO detention center in Aurora where ICE imprisons hundreds of undocumented immigrants.
“He showed up right away trying to shut the place down,” Fabbricatore recalls. “I didn’t agree with that and didn’t think he understood what was going on at a time when we had 87% criminal aliens in detention there. I remember thinking we need someone in that seat who actually knows what he’s talking about.”
Fabbricatore resigned from ICE three years later because he says he was “aggravated with the Biden administration and how they were dealing with the border situation.” But he decided two years into his retirement to seek the Republican nomination for Crow’s 6th Congressional District seat because he figured that he had “given up maybe a little bit too soon on trying to handle the border and help with national security.”
Colorado’s 6th Congressional District encompasses much of the eastern part of the Denver metropolitan area, including portions of Centennial and Littleton, and all of Aurora.
Fabbricatore, a 52-year-old native New Yorker, has made immigration his main campaign issue in a year when the city — where he has lived since 1997 — has snagged national and even international headlines for its recent influx of Venezuelan migrants. His has been among the loudest voices this election season warning about the presence of a Venezuelan prison gang called Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA in the city.
Police have arrested 8 of the 10 people they say they have linked so far to the group, insisting it is not a major safety threat to the city.
Although Fabbricatore has made breathless warnings about the gang to other news outlets, he told the Sentinel he has been careful not to over exaggerate TdA’s activities in Aurora or say it has taken over the city, as Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinski has at times claimed, only to be paroted by politicians ranging from Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman to former President Donald Trump. Still, he says the gang needs to be eradicated before its membership grows in Aurora.
“I think it’s important that people see the truth, because the truth is scary enough. You don’t have to over-inflate numbers, and you don’t have to say that the Aurora is burning to make people realize that there is” a threat posed by TdA, he said.
Fabbricatore recently wrote and self-published a book called “De-Iced” about what he describes as “currently out-of-control open border conditions.” The book makes a case that sanctuary cities such as Denver that have made a policy of not harassing undocumented immigrants have pushed immigrant-related problems to lower-rent and lower-income suburbs such as Aurora without the resources to handle them. Aurora Police Department had a shortage of 68 officers as of this posting.
His book addresses fentanyl distribution and impediments to apprehending child predators and human traffickers. It also details Fabbricatore’s experience in 2019 as a target of the Abolish ICE movement. He says he was singled out by dozens of anti-ICE demonstrators who distributed leaflets in his neighborhood claiming that he was in charge of a “concentration camp,” referring to the privately-owned GEO ICE detention center in Aurora that Crow has wanted to shutter.
“I received death threats, and one person was arrested in Colorado Springs and convicted of making those threats against me and my agents,” Fabbricatore wrote. “This was a difficult and traumatic experience for my family, as my job was my responsibility, but they were being targeted for it.”
The political newcomer acknowledges he is the underdog in a race against a popular congressman who has won the district by wide margins since first elected in 2018. “Being a voice for what I believe in, and for what other people tell me they want” is just as important as actually beating Crow, he said.
Fabbricatore criticizes Crow for not seeming to know, or at least care, that some ICE detainees are violent criminals whom Fabbricatore describes as “rapists and murderers” and says should not be released back on the streets. He derides the congressman for going against the Laken Riley Act, a House bill aimed at equipping ICE and state governments with enhanced tools to combat crime by people who have entered the country illegally.
“Looking at what Jason Crow wants to happen with immigration and other things that he’s voted on, I just felt like I wanted to be the one to run against him in this election cycle,” he said.
Fabbricatore opposes abortion rights except in cases of rape or incest, but says his personal views do not lead him to question state laws allowing abortion, like in Colorado. He supports gun owners’ rights, but wants prosecutors to crack down on illegal firearms possession. He favors making green energy more efficient and cost-effective, and wants to explore the possibility of developing micro-reactors throughout the country to produce nuclear power.
Though he has allied himself with far-right figures such as U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Chip Roy of Texas, Fabbricatore said he takes umbrage when people assume he supports Donald Trump whose “theatrics,” as he describes the former president’s bombast, sometimes make him cringe. That said, the assumption isn’t off-base. Fabbricatore does in fact back Trump, whom he says he admires for having won the presidency without a traditional political background and whose end to longtime federal “catch and release” policy toward undocumented immigrants he wants to see more of.
He notes that he “did not agree with what happened” on Jan 6, 2021, the day of the pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Still, he blames then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser — not Trump — for “allowing it all to happen.”
Fabbricatore, like Trump, is a native New Yorker, having been raised in Brooklyn and Queens, educated mostly in Catholic schools, and served, he said, as his senior class president. Also like Trump, he is a loud talker, turning heads in a café late last month when being interviewed for this story.
He spoke proudly of his 30-year career in federal law enforcement, which he started in the U.S. Air Force security forces. He then went to work with the Federal Protective Service, and later for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now known as ICE).
He is a principal in a California-based company called The Complete Solution Group, which provides consulting services on immigration, firearms and self-defense products to clients he refused to name, citing their non-disclosure agreements. If elected, he said he would divest from the company.
Fabbricatore’s home in Aurora has been drawn out of the 6th Congressional District and sits now within the 4th Congressional District, where Boebert is running. Federal law doesn’t require congressional candidates to live in their districts, and nobody has made much of an issue of it regarding Fabbricatore, especially because his home is merely feet away from the district line.
Crow, for his part, has since taking office in 2019 served through two impeachments, a pandemic and an insurrection. In 2020, he was appointed as an impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment.
“It’s been a wild ride, to say the least, the last five and a half years,” he said Monday in a conversation with the Sentinel.
The Democratic incumbent spoke with frustration about Republicans’ “failed leadership,” making this “one of the least productive congresses in history.”
“We spent weeks, weeks of legislative taxpayer time while the Republicans tried to choose a new speaker and ousted the old one because of personal grievances,” he said. “And then, you know, you have people who just are not serious people, not serious legislators, who are there for, you know, personal fame, personal gain, to get attention. It makes it very hard.”
Crow, 45, sees this summer’s controversy about TdA gang members allegedly overrunning Aurora as an increasingly-used Republican tactic trying to force Democrats to spend their “time and oxygen responding to lies and misinformation.”
“It was so obviously a lie and so obviously not consistent with reality on the ground and what we knew the situation to be,” he said. “There was an initial reaction of I’m not going to give this a platform or the oxygen it doesn’t deserve and, you know, fan the flames. But when it became apparent that it had already taken root and was spreading in the way that it was, then, obviously, I was compelled to respond.”
Crow acknowledges that more needs to be done to address the influx of about 40,000 Venezuelans to Colorado over the last few years. About 15,000 are living in his district. He points to the irony that Trump and fellow Republicans are raising the issue as an election-season crisis when, as he tells it, they could have averted much of that crisis by embracing a recent bipartisan border deal.
“That deal was tanked by Donald Trump because he’d rather run on the problem than solve the problem,” he said, noting that deal would have allowed the feds to hire more border control officers, add more technology to secure the southern border and address a backlog of asylum seekers.
Crow hopes for enough Democratic wins in November to “reinvigorate that deal.”
In the meantime, he said he has ten staffers in his Aurora office working as caseworkers to help immigrants and asylum seekers navigate the immigration system as well as find housing, jobs and services. He said he will continue to seek Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal funding to help state, county and city governments, and nonprofits, serve immigrant communities. And, he added, “I will continue to be their voice. I will speak out, and I will represent them publicly and continue to talk about their plight,” he said of immigrants living in his district.
That plight, he noted, includes conditions in ICE’s detention center in Aurora, which continues to be run by the privately-owned GEO Group.
Crow said he is proud of having passed a law providing more federal oversight, including by members of Congress, into it and other privately run detention centers. Still, more than five years after facing down Fabbricatore about an array of health, safety and civil rights problems immigrants faced at the GEO prison in Aurora, he still aims to push legislation stopping private companies from running federally funded immigrant detention centers — or any prisons, for that matter.
“Fundamentally, when you add a profit motivation into the detention of human beings, you create a perverse incentive to cut corners that result in abuses,” he said.
Crow, a former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient, serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He had harsh words for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he doesn’t believe he is serving the best interests of Israel nor the Israeli people.
“I have long said that his actions indicate that he’s not interested in trying to find a resolution to this conflict,” he said. Until that resolution involves two states where Jews and Palestinian “can feel safe and have a right to exist,” he added, “I don’t see how any of this changes.”
Crow, along with U.S. Rep Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, wrote a letter signed by 86 federal lawmakers last year condemning Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel while also raising concerns about the Israeli government’s conduct, especially its restrictive policies on humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Those restrictions call into question assurances Netanyahu has made to the U.S., they wrote, urging the Biden administration to consider an array of possible responses, including withholding certain military aid to Israel. So far, the Biden administration has not done so.
Crow expressed concerns about Israel’s more recent attacks in the West Bank and Lebanon, and its threats to retaliate against Iran for its missile strike on Israel in early October.
“I’m very worried about escalation. Ultimately, you just are not going to solve this. You cannot bomb away this problem, and that is what they appear to be trying to do,” he said of Israel.
“You know, we have to be very careful that, when we’re providing aid and support, we do so consistent with our values and our reputation.”
Closer to home, Crow touts that the current 3.2% inflation rate “is the lowest it’s been since 2021,” while also acknowledging that the cost of living is still too high. He lauded Congressional Democrats’ work trying to ease prices by solving a workforce shortage partly through immigration reform; continuing to address supply chain disruptions that crept up during COVID; and passing laws that regulate price gouging.
“There’s legislative proposals that I’m co-sponsoring that would further crack down on it that remain difficult to get passed under this current Congress,” he said.
Crow supports ethics reforms for the U.S. Supreme Court. He also is open to considering other reforms such as term limits or expanding the number of justices.
“I think this Court has been radically out of line with not only the historic role of the court and the role of precedent, but also the values of Americans on almost every issue, from abortion to common-sense gun violence prevention to environmental regulation to rolling back Chevron deference and the role of regulation and rulemaking. The lives of everyday Americans, they have gutted extremely important protections for Americans that I think we’re only just beginning to see some of the major consequences of.”
Meet John Fabbricatore
John Fabbricatore is a 52-year-old retired ICE field office director who has lived in Aurora since 1997. He is married with two children — a 14-year-old daughter and a 29-year-old son. He also has a 6-month old grandson.
The New York City native was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens where he was educated in Catholic schools and says he was elected senior class president. He enlisted in the Air Force, where he served as the security forces, then worked for the Federal Protective Service and ICE (previously the Immigration and Naturalization Service) until his retirement as field office director in 2022.
He racked up some community college credits while in the Air Force, but earned his associate’s degree in organizational leadership online through Trident University during COVID. He says he is “still working on his bachelor’s” degree.
Meet Jason Crow
Jason Crow, 45, was elected to represent Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in 2018 after having worked as a private lawyer who volunteered his time for free representing veterans.
Crow enlisted in the National Guard and worked construction to help pay his way through college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He went on to join the active-duty Army and served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and in the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying to both Iraq and Afghanistan and rising to the rank of captain.
In Congress, he serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Foreign Affairs Committee, on which he is the Ranking Democrat of the Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee.
Crow received his law degree at the University of Denver. He and his former wife have two children attending local schools.
Jason Crow Q&A
• Despite wide agreement among economic and business experts that the US economy is sound, inflation has subsided and the job market is healthy, many middle-class and poorer Americans say inflated prices for most goods and services is a critical problem. Specifically, what legislative actions can Congress take to lower the price of goods. What evidence do you offer that it would or wouldn’t work, and would you vote for them?
I hear from hardworking Coloradans everyday who are struggling with the high costs of goods, including groceries. I grew up working class and understand how rising prices can hurt families. When the price of food goes up, families have to make hard decisions about saving less, limiting other expenses, and paying their bills. I have supported several legislative efforts to bring down prices, address supply chain issues, and deliver relief to Coloradans.
This includes helping pass the Inflation Reduction Act — which lowered the deficit and lowered healthcare costs by capping the price of insulin and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Additionally, I voted to pass the America COMPETES Act in the House of Representatives — which invested in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and strengthened our supply chains. I also supported the Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act, and to stop opportunistic companies from price gouging, I passed the Freedom From Price Gouging Act and supported the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act.
Congress must continue to pass legislation that prioritizes the American people, not mega corporations. To this end, I am committed to fighting inflation and reducing barriers for people so they have every opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
- Would you support federal legislation guaranteeing abortion rights, essentially nullifying states that now restrict abortion rights since the overturning of Roe v Wade? Why or why not?
I am a proud co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act. This bill would create a statutory right for healthcare providers to provide abortion care, and a right for their patients to receive that care, free from bans and restrictions that single out abortion and impede access. Abortion is health care, and it’s essential that Americans have access to this care across the country.
Reproductive choices are deeply personal in nature and should be left to a patient and their doctor — not their member of Congress. When the Supreme Court reversed nearly 50 years of precedent and overturned Roe v. Wade, Americans’ fundamental rights to make healthcare decisions free from government interference were severely compromised. This decision has resulted in dangerous repercussions nationwide and put women’s lives at risk. I am committed to working to restore these fundamental protections.
- If the Senate bipartisan immigration reform bill were resurrected in the House, would you vote for it? What would you offer as an amendment, if anything?
If the bipartisan border deal that former President Trump opposed, and ultimately killed, were to come to the House Floor, I would vote for it.
The U.S. immigration system is broken and we must take action to secure the Southern border. This will require that Congress adopts a comprehensive legislative solution like the bipartisan immigration bill that was negotiated earlier this year. This bill was focused on key reforms to improve legal pathways for migration, deter illegal border crossings, and enforce border and immigration laws in a lawful and orderly way. There’s simply too much at stake for Congress not to act.
- Despite gains made by the Affordable Care Act in ensuring access to health insurance, many feel it’s not affordable. If elected to the House, how would you amend the act? Would you vote to strike it? What could Congress do to make it more “affordable”?
Healthcare is a human right – and no one should be forced to choose between necessary healthcare and putting a roof over their head. Although millions of Americans now have coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act, there are still steps needed to protect, improve, and expand our healthcare system – all while making it more affordable.
This is why I helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which extends ACA subsidies, expands health care access to low-income Americans, allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug costs, sets a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs through Medicare, expands premium and co-pay assistance for seniors, and caps insulin at $35 per month for Medicare — all while lowering the deficit and without raising taxes on families making less than $400,000 a year. The Inflation Reduction Act also included a bill I led which penalizes drug companies that raise prices faster than inflation.
Although this was a strong first step, the work is far from over. I will continue working to lower costs and move towards universal coverage by (1) protecting the ACA from extremists who want to repeal it – like former President Trump did in 2017; (2) improving the ACA by lowering premiums, taking on big pharma, and cutting harmful red tape like prior authorization that slows down access to care; and (3) expanding Medicare coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing, while establishing a public option that lowers costs and eliminates gaps in coverage for all Coloradans.
- If Congress were a courtroom jury, based on the evidence you’ve seen so far, would you vote to convict Donald Trump on criminal charges for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol? Which charges? Why or why not?
I was one of the Members stuck in the House Gallery on January 6, 2021. I can recall many details from that day vividly. I remember consoling my friends and colleagues who had just spoken with their families, telling my fellow Members to remove their pins so they wouldn’t be identified, and I remember the brave Capitol Police officers who put themselves between us and the violent mob. Make no mistake, January 6th was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, and a sad reality check on our democracy.
Following the insurrection on our Capitol, there was bipartisan agreement in Congress that Donald Trump was responsible for the violent insurrection that sought to overturn the election. The U.S. Constitution protects the right to vote and bars candidates from office who abuse the process or engage in insurrection. It’s clear to me that Donald Trump has done both of those things. No one should be above the law, not even former presidents.
However Congress is not a courtroom. We must allow the full legal process to play out and show that despite the events of January 6th, our democracy is strong and resilient. We cannot have unity without truth and accountability.
- Would you support measures to impose term limits for all members of Congress?
Every member of Congress has an obligation to serve their constituencies with integrity — by honoring their oath, and representing their districts faithfully. As a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve seen first hand what can happen when there is no rule of law and a lack of trust in government.
In conversations across the district — whether at town halls or the local King Soopers — I’ve heard concerns that the government is no longer working for everyday Coloradans. And I feel the same way. As politicians with classified briefings out-earn the S&P 500, foreign actors continue to interfere in our elections, and campaigns take unlimited donations from corporations — it’s no surprise that the American people’s trust in government is at an all-time low.
This is why I support legislation to end the corrupting influence of dark money in elections, ban members of Congress from trading stocks, shut the lobbying revolving door, and continue John Lewis’ legacy of fighting to increase access to the ballot box and return power to the people.
When it comes to folks who believe strongly in term limits, I have a lot in common with them: we both want to end corruption in Washington and return the power to the people. However, I feel there are unintended consequences to enacting term limits – like eliminating institutional knowledge, removing voter’s oversight of lawmakers looking for their next job, and not allowing voters to choose who represents them in Congress – that serves to undermine efforts to remove corrupt influence from D.C. and further removes people’s power to choose who represents them in Congress.
The lighter side of Jason Crow
• What food do you hate most? Jello
• What was the last book you read? Be honest.
Democracy Awakening – Heather Cox Richardson
• What’s your favorite TV show of all time?
The Simpsons
• Dog person? Cat person? Both? Neither?
My 100% humane society rating precludes me from taking sides in this debate.
John Fabbricatore Q&A
Despite wide agreement among economic and business experts that the US economy is sound, inflation has subsided and the job market is healthy, many middle-class and poorer Americans say inflated prices for most goods and services is a critical problem. Specifically, what legislative actions can Congress take to lower the price of goods. What evidence do you offer that it would or wouldn’t work, and would you vote for them?
Work with large corporations to especially food companies to lower prices when the costs of raw materials decrease and to pass that savings on to the consumer. Companies should be able to make a profit, but not have a huge windfall period. The Government can give a tax break to companies that participate. The savings passed on to consumers is put back into the economy by robust spending. Congress also also needs to prioritize and incentivize the creation and production of goods in America so that we can stimulate the job market further by increasing well paying jobs.
Would you support federal legislation guaranteeing abortion rights, essentially nullifying states that now restrict abortion rights since the overturning of Roe v Wade? Why or why not?
Decisions surrounding abortion have been returned to the states and I support it staying that way.
If the Senate bipartisan immigration reform bill were resurrected in the House, would you vote for it? What would you offer as an amendment, if anything?
I did not support the Bipartisan effort as I did not believe it did enough for true enforcement efforts and was not a clean bill that focused on Border Security and Immigration enforcement. I supported HR2 The Secure Border Act. I want the Immigration and Nationality Act and Title 8 to be enforced as it is written. I do not see the need for additional amendments especially now, but if required to make a change I would enforce mandatory detention for anyone entering illegally and claiming asylum. INA 235(b)(1) instructs that, if the alien is found to have a credible fear of persecution, he or she “shall be detained for further consideration of the application for asylum” in formal removal proceedings.
Despite gains made by the Affordable Care Act in ensuring access to health insurance, many feel it’s not affordable. If elected to the House, how would you amend the act? Would you vote to strike it? What could Congress do to make it more “affordable”?
Ending the affordable care act without something else to replace it is not proper legislation. Until a fully thought out system is implemented Congress can look at additional tax credits for all income levels.
If Congress were a courtroom jury, based on the evidence you’ve seen so far, would you vote to convict Donald Trump on criminal charges for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol? Which charges? Why or why not?
No. Congress is not a courtroom jury and even supposing so is wrong. The powers of Congress are properly enumerated in the Constitution and criminal prosecution is not one of those.
Would you support measures to impose term limits for all members of Congress?
Yes, I have already signed a term limits pledge limiting myself to 6 years.
The lighter side of John Fabbricatore
• What food do you hate most?
I really don’t dislike any food to the point of hate. I eat everything.
• What was the last book you read? Be honest.
The Real War Against America, By Brett Kingstone
• What’s your favorite TV show of all time?
Homestead Rescue and Firefly.
• Dog person? Cat person? Both? Neither?
Dog person. I have 3 rescue dogs: Layla, Thor, and Loni that I love to pieces.
Jason Crow is a good man and a judicious legislator. We need more like him.
I’m not in favor of telling people how to vote but Jason Crow is not in this for us. His voting record is abysmal and he is very absent from Aurora. When asked for help with genuine issues, Crow does not respond and is a ghost. His collaborations in Washington are self-serving and not in the best interests of Colorado. Research for your self……he is not good for us.
**Representative Crow has and is doing a terrific job.
as for gangs in Aurora? “Aurora police identify 10 known Tren de Aragua gang …”
Gangs in Aurora: Aurora’s gangs represent all socioeconomic strata and ethnic groups; there are Asian gangs, skinheads, African-American gangs, interracial gangs, and middle- class gangs. Gang behaviors manifest a fascination with violence, money, and power. All disputes are settled with guns. The problem of violence is so serious that local medical facilities view death and injuries from gun shots as a public health problem.
So one question might be, just how many gangs are in Aurora and how many members are there?
I was a supervisor in the Gang Unit years ago. At that time we had thousands of individuals reliably identified as gang members (all races and types as mentioned). Our bosses decided that we needed to purge our records because they were afraid the records would look prejudicial and place the City and the Department in a bad light. We argued that we needed the records and that gang membership had been thoroughly documented and not by using some random criteria like dress, tattoos or friends. The gang unit solves a great many shootings and murders because gang members commit a large percentage of those crimes. Our arguments were ignored and we purged thousands of gang records which put us back years. I can only tell you that there are very likely thousands of gang members that have been contacted in Aurora. The City doesn’t like to talk about it. Our department leadership hindered us a number of times when gang unit members offended someone in the chain of command. In one case, a black officer had become an expert and was making presentations that brought him much notoriety. He was reassigned, in my opinion, because the bosses were jealous and afraid that he might contradict something they said. In another case, our Asian gang expert was removed because he insulted a lieutenant (not directly). It takes about three years for a gang officer to develop relationships with the Asian community and to become effective. I was with him his last night when we contacted some Asian gang members. When he told them that it was his last night, they said that our bosses couldn’t be that stupid. They said “You are the only one who ever talks to us…the other officers are afraid to”. Leadership is a huge problem in law enforcement as it is in the Secret Service.