Mr. Trump, you say that you are driven to run for president again because you want to help people.
If you’re being honest about that, please don’t come to Aurora.
This city of almost 400,000 desperately needs assistance, but you’re not offering that.
We’ve watched what you and your running mate, Sen. JD Vance, have done in Springfield, Ohio. The proven lies that the both of you have inflated about Haitian immigrants there eating pet dogs and cats have inflicted chaos on that community. Your cruel fabrication has been repeatedly debunked by Republican officials there, and even the people who inadvertently inspired the calamity with careless social media posts.
The people who made those posts, as well as most of America, had no idea you would create an hysterical false narrative to seize on the fear and hatred that afflicts so many of your supporters.
In Springfield, and across the nation, you played to your supporters’ greatest weaknesses in trying to cement their allegiance to you. You seized on their fear of dark-skinned and foreign people. You capitalized on your supporters’ inability or unwillingness to think critically, and for themselves, about the odious things you say and do.
Your constant riffs on Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, Asians and others, couched as “Mexicans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Iranians,” feed your supporters’ irrational fear of people who look and sound different from themselves. You have called them “vermin,” “rapists,” “murderers,” “animals,” and said that ,“They are destroying the blood of our country.”
We know what you have heard from people like GOP House Rep. Lauren Boebert, who does not represent Aurora, and GOP Aurora City Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, who sits on the council but does not come close to representing the attitude of the majority of Aurora residents.
Jurinsky ignited the falsified controversy that has attracted you. She has repeatedly demonized the Venezuelans, who were first trafficked to the Denver and Aurora area by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about two years ago as a political stunt.
On social media posts and on Fox News broadcasts, Jurinsky has repeatedly, falsely claimed that Venezuelan gangsters had taken over entire apartment complexes and parts of the city.
The handful of Venezuelans accused of being members of gangs pales against the hundreds of other residents in the region linked as members of other gangs.
Jurinsky apparently didn’t anticipate you would weaponize her deceit even further and tell the nation that Aurora was completely overrun with Venezuelans and the gang members those immigrants have infected the region with. Or, Jurinsky didn’t think through how such a vicious and irresponsible deceit could backfire on whatever motivated her to undertake such a scheme. It has endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of Latinos and Hispanics now at risk of being accused of being Venezuelan gangsters, simply by existing.
Jurinsky either didn’t understand nor care that Aurora’s version of “eating the pets” could repel future businesses from coming here, turn future residents away and hurt existing small businesses that depend on people from the region to come and shop and eat here.
Who wants to come to a community “overrun” by Venezuelan gangsters?
You say that you do, Mr. Trump, and it’s clear why.
But what you don’t understand is that, while Aurora, like Denver, is struggling with the sheer volume of Venezuelan immigrants trying to make the region their home, this city is no stranger to diversity and immigration. Like all large cities, Aurora and Denver struggle with crime, homelessness, housing, education — and balancing freedom with responsibility.
More than half of Aurora is not white. All of the city’s state, and congressional representatives are liberals, progressives and moderates. Those representatives are Black, Christian, Latino, White, Jewish, Muslim and strong proponents of ensuring everyone who lives here has a working chance at achieving their American Dream. The state’s gay governor once created a school here just for immigrants to boost their chances of success.
Several of Aurora’s boulevards are packed with restaurants and markets that boast every cuisine and eclectic grocery item from across the globe. They offer everything from exquisite Ethiopian stews to stellar Vietnamese phos to tantalizing arepas and unheard of Iraqi flatbreads and handmade tofus and white Siberian borscht and Japanese ramen broth like you’ve never had before.
This is a city where the local Costco looks like the bustling lobby of the United Nations headquarters. Very few people here care or even notice that some of us wear burkas, huaraches, keffiyehs, Roebucks, yarmulkes or turbans. Nobody is offended or put off by the fact that so many people who live here sound like the string of PA announcements in an international airport.
Aurora is not afraid of diversity. It embraces it. After decades of this once-blue-collar military and farming community turning less and less “white,” Aurora residents have learned that we all have so much in common, that our languages, races, religions and sexuality are the things that least define us, individually, and as a community.
It isn’t always easy. And that’s where Aurora needs help. The government watched as 40,000 Venezuelan immigrants came here. They can’t easily get work credentials and some not at all. Despite this, they are anxious to work and determined to be able to. We need the government to provide fast and easy work permits. We need resources to help people who have nothing and who don’t speak any English learn to assimilate into our community. They are no less refugees here than the Hurricane Katrina victims sent from Louisiana by the U.S. government almost 20 years ago.
We need money and resources to help our newest neighbors help themselves.
What Aurora doesn’t need is for you to demonize these members of our community, or anyone. We get that cultivating fear and hate among your followers somehow brings you satisfaction, or that you see it as a way to propel you back to the White House.
That’s not what most of Aurora is about. Sure, we have a small but vocal and strategically placed minority of people too naive or indifferent to the catastrophic danger of demonizing people, but you can ignore them, like we normally do.
There is, however, nothing for you here.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
President Trump: As you can probably tell, Dave Perry is among the most left-leaning editors in Aurora, which explains the financial distress of his paper. Given his penchant for supporting the activists who protest Aurora, and the fact that he doesn’t even live in the city, you can take his recommendation with a grain of salt. We do.
Aurora is proud to be among the most diverse cities in the USA. That is not a problem. What is a problem is the huge number of people who have moved here after entering the country illegally. This influx has swamped our housing market and has caused limited availability and rent increases throughout the metro area. Although most of these folks are simply looking for more economic opportunities than they have in their home countries, some are gang members. These criminals have terrorized both their countrymen as well as others in our great city.
Many of Colorado’s problems are self-inflicted. It declared itself a sanctuary state prohibiting local law enforcement to work with federal authorities and then doubled-down by drastically reducing the consequences of breaking the law. Denver went a step further by declaring itself a sanctuary city and then hired non-governmental organizations to house people who have entered illegally to reside in Aurora.
You, Mr. President, as well as any person who lives in or has entered the country legally, is more than welcome to visit our great city. If you have solutions to our housing problem or our drastic increase in crime, we are anxious to hear your thoughts.
Aurora has declared itself a welcoming city. The city will be pleased to host you.
“These criminals have terrorized both their countrymen as well as others in our great city.”
Be specific: What others?
I haven’t been terrorized.
It sounds like you, personally are afraid. That is your problem, not mine.
Are they terrorizing their countrymen? I have no idea and don’t care. The idea that I would care about what goes on in what passes for a slum in Aurora, is of course absurd. I suggest that if you live in that neighborhood and are being terrorized, that you leave. If you want to pretend that I am being terrorized to harvest the votes of cowards, then I suggest that come up with a better plan. I am not buying what you are selling.
Old Solipsist weighs in again.
It’s funny to even think that Trump has a plan for housing
Yeah, your side’s big plan is, “Shove everyone into Megablocks because hyper-urbanity is the only way anyone should live.”
Or, based on the last 15 years in the Denver metro, completely ignore it altogether until housing costs skyrocket, then manically spend the ensuing years trying to catch up while continuing to encourage mass migration from both inside and outside the country.
“Concerned” 100% gets it, and well said, Dave Perry is clearly part of the problem, suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Luckily, Trump will never read or consider Dave’s little opinion. Aurora needs a voice, no town in this country wants Venezuela gangs violently taking over there apartment buildings. Theres a reason illegal immigration is in fact “ILLEGAL” in this country. These kinds of liberals will always continue to tear at the fabric of society, because they are deep down, sad and lonely and are incredibly moldable by mainstream media.
Hilarious, thanks for the laugh. I’ve lived here in Aurora for 30 years and plan to live here the rest of my life. And YOU do not represent the people of Aurora in any way, shape, or form, anonymous one.
Yes, to be fair, white liberals and their pathological altruism are one of the main causes of dysfunction in Aurora. Mass deportation should start with them.
Your world view is as upside down as Benito’s. Best of luck.
Your worldview is as empty as Ceaucescu’s skull. Best of luck.
Dave, keep it up. Hate always loses to love. We not only don’t need Trump here, we don’t need him in the Oval Office. Your opinion piece hit the nail on the head!
“Hate always loses to love.”
What a hilariously fatuous statement. A brief walk though human history easily dispels such gauzy fantasias.
The 40,000 Venezuelans were not “trafficked” to Denver by the governor of Texas. These asylum seekers left their homeland and traveled thousands of miles north through more than a dozen stable Spanish-speaking nations. They chose not to settle in any of those countries. Instead they continued to the Texas border and voluntarily boarded buses headed to Denver.
Why make it appear, Dave Perry, that the newcomers are victims without any self-agency? Why blame the governor of Texas? It is much more accurate to blame the completely broken federal immigration system. But, in addition, the current Aurora fiasco is due to an irresponsible slumlord and to dangerous criminal activity.
We will always need our slaves to perform the very upleasant tasks that we don’t want to do.
You have yours (although you may act like they don’t exist) and I have mine. They may come from Venezuela or Venus, but they will come and one day, because Mrs. Rodriguez will have ten children and Mrs Jones will only have one (or perhaps just her cute little dog) they will become the masters and others the slaves. Such are leasons of history.
Ok…I actually buy some of what you’re saying. What I do not accept is Trump’s obnoxious grandstanding on immigration when he personally killed the most comprehensive bipartisan immigration legislation in decades. Remember his wall that Mexico will pay for?! So much bombastic fear-mongering and so very little true problem solving.
Back to this editorial: I do not buy the simplistic perspective of this Sentinel editorial that fully ignores the atrocious slumlord, the charities’ payments to said slumlord, the Venezuelan criminals and thugs, the leaderless police, the dysfunctional municipal government, and the self-agency of the newcomers.
We can, and have met our needs for cheaper labor (slaves as you call them), through the means of legal immigration. There are many ways to do this without making it a free-for-all at the border. And by the way, calling them slaves diminishes the true horror of involuntary servitude.
Whaterver makes you feel better when they clean your toliets and mow your grass.
Sorry you don’t have children or grandchildren who love you enough to help you out with that, Old Solipsist.
Dave Perry and his “open letter” opinion piece has little to offer but generates the opportunity to react with a solid platform for exploring this visit from a couple characters from Aurora council and their thoughts, Mayor Coffman and council Murillo. All three of the CBZ properties met with TdA gangs powerful and damaging impact happen to be located in Ward 1. (Old Aurora) It’s become the main focus of this national talk on what incompetent immigration enforcement leads to. But it has rose with far reaching consequences into the political circles. You have to wonder is CM Murillo, or Crow, or Polis going to go to meet with Trump to give him the million- dollar showing of these local hot-spots owed to DC policy recommendations to do nothing at the border. It played out resulting with this man-made Aurora disaster. YouTube has an interesting 9-news interview exactly on Trump showing up over this, see attached link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuKtLFxTP-g
Hear, hear!
Dave Perry once again nails the story and facts perfectly. No exaggerations, no twisting of the facts, no alternative facts.
I specifically moved TO Aurora 30+ years ago BEFORE it was Blue. I moved to Aurora for the diversity of ideas, cultures and neighborhoods. I have not been disappointed in my decision.
Who IS upset? The majority are those who wish Hampden was still a dirt road, the airport was @ Stapleton, they could “safely” live in a subdivision that didn’t have “those kinds of people” in it.
Well, for 30 years, I’ve railed against these immoral and narrow-minded views. So, if Aurora isn’t full of the people “like it used to be”, accept my efforts and get our. Because, after all, “those people” are here to only lower your property values, and not to create a diverse and vibrant community.
There isn’t a person alive that would choose to move to Aurora! You’re lying like every other dem.
Yes, a subdivision without your kind is absolute heaven.
I can’t wait for The Don to see Saudi Aurora first hand! It’s one of the worst cities in America.
Spoken like a true MAGA moron. “Aurora one of the most worst cities in the world.” I can’t stop laughing!