It’s time for straight answers about controversies in Aurora swirling around tens of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants, and if the city won’t provide details, state and federal officials need to step in.
Aurora residents are being told a catalog of conflicting stories about whether some Venezuelan immigrants are victims of crimes, perpetrators of crimes, or both.
The story actually started several years ago, before political and living conditions in Venezuela became so dire that more than a third of the country fled.
The story affecting Venezuelan immigrants here started in 2015 when Aurora and other major cities grappled with the so-called “sanctuary city” dilemma.
The slur was the invention of far-right conservatives trying to make it as if large cities were complicit in aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
In reality, cities like Denver and Aurora determined that community police cannot assist immigration police in tracking down or identifying undocumented immigrants and uphold public safety at the same time.
The wisdom behind that is tried and true. If police ask for “papers please,” they’ll do it almost certainly only with people of color, and people who don’t speak English or have Latino accents.
But much worse, undocumented immigrants and others will fear and avoid local police if they enforce immigration law, making them prime targets for all kinds of criminals. And, for those undocumented immigrants who get in car collisions or other legal trouble, the chances of them bolting from the scene skyrockets.
That’s why on more than one occasion over the past several years, Aurora has shunned the slur of “sanctuary city” but abided by local law enforcement protocols that only make sense.
Beginning two years ago, as many as 40,000 Venezuelan immigrants descended on the Denver metro area. Many, clearly thousands, have moved into Aurora.
They came to the United States for jobs. And this is a place hungry for workers.
Despite that, a completely dysfunctional Congress and ineffectual Biden Administration have created only bureaucratic gridlock for these immigrants, making them a burden on local taxpayers rather than the asset they could be, and want to be.
Foolishly, the state and federal government have for all practical purposes ignored the problem, periodically sending some money, not nearly enough.
Denver and Aurora are suffering a burden not unlike a hurricane or earthquake, but with no federal and very little state assistance.
That’s wrong.
All this got much worse last week when 4,000 Venezuelan immigrants and others descended on a parking lot at the Gardens on Havana shopping center. The event, apparently a flash-mob driven by social media posts, resulted in a rowdy and dangerous spontaneous rally prompted by the Venezuelan presidential election.
What actually happened at this event is still unclear. City Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky insists that police have proof shots were fired at a police car from someone at the flash-mob event.
There are questions about other illegal incidents, gunfire into the air and possible harassment of store employees.
While police have worked to dispel some information circulation on social media, the department has not addressed those disputes with a factual and detailed report. Instead, the event has become political fodder for a wide range of anti-immigrant factions.
The allegations center on Aurora and Denver residents not being safe among these immigrants because of their alleged lawlessness and because of allegations that, now, Venezuelan gangs have also migrated to the metro area and are run amok.
Complicating this is news, obtained by the Sentinel, indicating from Albuquerque Police, that the notorious Tren de Aragua gang has landed in the metroplex, and that they have been given a “green light” to shoot police in Denver and Aurora.
Despite repeated requests from the Sentinel and other media, Aurora police have not told the public to what extent the TDA gang problem exists, or if it even does.
There is no sense of whether Denver and Aurora have created an intelligence plan to closely monitor what’s happening among Venezuelan immigrants, or if they’re even capable of doing it.
Clearly, Aurora police were sandbagged by the July 28 Gardens on Havana flash mob.
It’s unclear now where many of these migrants are staying, how they’re surviving, and whether they are victims, or perpetrators along with TDA gang members.
This is an international problem, and one plaguing numerous American cities, just like Denver and Aurora.
This week, the owner and manager of an apartment in northwest Aurora has insisted publicly that his apartment complex has been overrun with TDA gang members and Aurora police have done nothing to stop it.
City officials have insisted that the apartment complex owner is fabricating the narrative to distract from years of code, safety and other violations at the complex that has made the building’s almost 100 units uninhabitable.
The owner insists that Aurora police should take care of problems inside the apartment complex, checking for some kind of immigration and gang credentials among residents.
No.
Problems like this are issues that only city code enforcement and property owners can address. Aurora Police cannot be immigration warriors.
Underlying all of this is real danger for these immigrants, who truly could be targets of gangs, and more likely, victims of anti-immigrant hate crimes — and equally dangerous hate politics.
The problem has become a ticking bomb of possible horrors and tragedies — for all of the community — and it demands a transparent and forthright explanation to the public of what these agencies know, and what they don’t.
State and federal officials must intervene in this chaos, providing intelligence, money and other resources to handle an influx of migrants that, clearly, Denver and Aurora are unable to manage.
If the city can’t provide answers, then state and federal officials need to take over that job immediately. It’s too critical of a problem to permit politics or malfeasance to create so much risk.
Although I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, I find the Democrats and the Sentinel, particularly, unable to deal with any reality. You don’t want any kind of restrictions on immigration and are a willing part of the sanctuary idea, yet you are concerned about the possibility of Venezuelan gang activity. You supported radical and uninformed changes to policing and now you are concerned about crime. No reporting on what SB217 did to policing. Suddenly it is okay to lower standards to get more officers. No admission of what has depleted the country of good officers. You champion relaxing drug laws and then wonder why we have a wave of fentanyl. I understand that we will have to go through a long period of crime and drug use before any reason returns. If it does, there will never be any admission that the liberals were wrong in what they did. Of course the Venezuelan gangs are here. Denver just arrested a Venezuelan gang member as part of a Denver jewelry store robbery. Thankfully, you have crippled law enforcement to the point that they cannot deal with it. When I was in the gang unit, we had records of thousands of gang members in Aurora. The City politicians did not want any admission of gang activity in Aurora.
I would suggest that you learn to sleep in the bed you made or begin to deal with reality. I know….I’m being silly.
Make the drug laws as draconian as you want. It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. In fact, there is VASTLY more drug crime now than there was in this country when one could buy heroin in the Sears and Roebuck catalog. You know where the term “junkie” came from? It’s a corruption of the word “junker”–that is, people who sell scrap. Prior to the Harrison Narcotics Act, people could collect scrap metal to easily pay for their habits.
Note that drug policy reform does NOT come with “defund the police”. They have nothing to do with each other. What “defund the police” even means depends on the details, but I am very much in favor of having as strong a police department as necessary to protect persons and property.
I have studied the effects of drug policy way more than most people over the past two decades. Somehow, people understand why alcohol prohibition failed, yet they think that drug prohibition will magically succeed. It’s utterly asinine.
Basic economics: supply and demand. Constrict supply if demand remains constant, price per unit goes up. Price per unit goes up, incentivizing more people to get into the drug game. As there is no legal availability of these drugs, organized crime (and the CIA, etc lol) takes over. Think of them as competing governments–warlords. The effect of the Controlled Substance Act is to restrict supply, making prescriptions more difficult to fill, and placing caps on quantity manufactured. The “control” in “controlled substance” refers not to any sort of “danger to society” or “health effects” or whatever (cigarettes and tobacco kill more people than all illicit drugs combined many times over), but “control” as in “arms control”, “munitions control”, etc.
The CSA restricts supply, driving the market price up. Doctors are afraid to prescribe the drugs. The more you intervene in this manner, the worse the problem gets. The only way out is to make the damn drugs available for retail purchase at pharmacies, just as cannabis is now available from dispensaries. A pharmacy is a dispensary–literally a drug dealer. Just like you buy your cars at the car dealer.
You CANNOT cut off the supply of drugs if the demand is there. All that does is cause the price to go up, thereby incentivizing people to go into the business of providing the drugs! Duh! That’s why cartels that rival governments form! BIG MONEY! The only way out is to remove the economic incentive. Then, you have to look at why it is that people are turning to drugs in the first place. This is a complex issue, and varies by locale, etc.
If you think the drug problem is somehow due to immigrants and gangs, you’re a fool. But I think you know that’s an absurd claim. I don’t see how you could be a cop and come to that conclusion.
A friend of mine lives outside Portland, OR, and tells me about how dysfunctional the government is there, and how utterly incapable they seem to be in coming to grips with the problem. These idiots “defunded” the police but forgot that you actually have to address all of the issues that the police were handling! If you’re a cop, you must be familiar with how the police these days in many areas are called to deal with a whole slew of things that aren’t within the traditional domain of law enforcement. It’s easier just to send the cops to clean it up. But cops exist primarily to do LAW ENFORCEMENT, not social work. “Defund the police” is an idiotic slogan that has its origins in a wonky use of the word “defund”. And then some politicians realized that people don’t understand that, and that, hey, they could run on “defund the police” and then just do it without addressing the problems using other means! “OK voters, we defunded the police like you asked!”
Yay. Wow, brilliant!
This is what happens when political elites get high on their own supply, and its an epidemic in this country–irrespective of political orientation. Phil Ochs wrote a song about this–and he was truly “far-left” lol. Unfortunately, people think the Democratic party is like “leftist” or something, hahhaa. Not so much. I wish.
[Intro]
In every American community, you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. So here, then, is a lesson in safe logic.
[Verse 1]
I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I’d lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
Get it?
[Verse 2]
I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
(D.A.R., that’s the Dykes of the American Revolution)
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don’t talk about revolution
That’s going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
[Verse 3]
I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I’m glad that the Commies were thrown out
Of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
And I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
As long as they don’t move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
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[Verse 4]
Ah, the people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
Now, I can’t understand how their minds work
What’s the matter don’t they watch Les Crane?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
[Verse 5]
Yes, I read New Republic and Nation
I’ve learned to take every view
You know, I’ve memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I’m almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There’s no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
[Verse 6]
I vote for the Democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I attend all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
And I’ll send all the money you ask for
But don’t ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
Maybe because the truth is ionconvenient
Good local reporting!! Send these stories to major news outlets like The Guardian., New York Times, CNN and Washington Post.
More twisted semantics from our local socialist newspaper. Yes, the term “sanctuary city” was coined by the political right in reference big left-wing cities who refused to cooperate with United States Customs enforcement on suppressing illegal immigration. But this in no way invalidates the illegal and unconstitutional process that is most definitely being used by these cities to promote illegal immigration.
The Socialist and Communist factions in the Democratic Party believe that if the country is flooded with poor and uneducated individuals, they will naturally become dependent on the Government. Once given the power to vote, they will then have a large permanent voting bloc who will naturally vote Democrat – the party of the welfare state. This will ensure their hold on power for generations to come.
Additionally, the far left, anti-White faction of the Democratic Party believes that the best way to overcome White Supremacy is to flood the country with non-Whites and then give them the power to vote. They believe that if European-Americans become a minority, they will no longer be able oppress non-Whites and our largely European based cultural norms in this country will have to change.
It is clear that the caring and humanitarian motivations presented in this editorial are simply a cover for far left liberals who want to remake American culture in a manner that fits their Socialist and less White aspirations. And now that they have managed to dump all of these poor unhoused uneducated individuals on the American public, they are looking for someone else to blame for the consequences.
And by the way, don’t forget to leave out the fact that the illegal Venezuelans who are here are fleeing a country ravaged by the same high crime, rampant Socialist state run amok that you seem to be trying to engineer here.
Conspiracy theories, insults and fake-rage, oh my!
I live near the Gardens on Havana and witnessed the events of that evening. We had cars lining our street in our neighborhood, people walking over to the shopping center. The police were located primarily on Florida Ave because of the bottleneck to traffic going into the shopping center near the retirement community located next door. My husband and I decided to drive by to see what was going on. Yes, there were so many people that it did affect traffic into and out of the Gardens. Yes, people were hanging out in groups. But what we saw were mostly young people and families desperately waiting to hear about the election results in Venezuela; people with their community hoping that change was coming to their homeland. We DID NOT see chaos. We DID NOT see violence. We DID NOT see people trashing the parking lot. When the cars left our neighborhood, there was not a bit of trash on the street. When I went to Target early Monday morning, there was not an unusual amount of trash in the parking lot. Stop the lies. Stop the vile hatred and start showing some real empathy for people who have left their home for the betterment of their families. One other sad note. There was a Venezuelan food truck located in the parking lot near Florida Avenue. They had been there for quite some time. They usually had maybe six to seven people getting food, sitting at a nearby table. After the lies spread by our council members, I no longer see the food truck. Sad to see hatred drove a good, community based business out of our area. Shame on our city council!
thank you thank you thank you
others can only spout ‘communism and socialism’ with out any proof other then a conservative council member who spouts negativism, anger and lies without out a spec of proof and is never held accountable. The police provided a report and the ‘right’ in this city refuse it. So thank you for your personal observation.
Um I saw pictures and videos of what was going on. All you liberals are the same. You have no clue why that food truck left.