Tren de Aragua puts spotlight back on Aurora, the city that gave its name to Trump’s deportation plan
Tren de Aragua puts spotlight back on Aurora, the city that gave its name to Trump’s deportation plan . Sixteen undocumented Venezuelan nationals are being held in federal custody in connection with a violent home invasion during which two fellow Venezuelans were held and tortured for hours
EL PAÍS América
No one, not even the authorities, knows exactly why a group of around 16 armed individuals burst into an apartment at the Edge at Lowry complex, located in the heart of the city of Aurora, Colorado, and tortured two Venezuelans who were inside. They tied them up, beat them, and threatened them for almost five hours. “They were pistol-whipped, they were beat, they were mistreated. One of them, the male, was actually stabbed. He had a stab wound,” Aurora police chief Todd Chamberlain told reporters. Chamberlain is almost certain of one thing: that this is another provocation by criminal gangs, specifically the so-called Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) classified as the sixth-most present gang on the United States border.

According to The Denver Post, all of them will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings or hearings before an immigration judge, an ICE official said. No police arrests have been made so far.

In a press conference, Chamberlain said that the incident that took place on Monday night was “100% gang activity.” He also said that it was difficult to identify the members because “they lack any distinctive marks or signs.” However, he insisted that he was using “all the resources” at his disposal to verify who these individuals are, what their involvement in the crime was, and their identities.

As the group of gunmen ransacked the apartment, the victims — a man and a woman — were taken to another vacant apartment. After hours of torture, they promised that if they were released, they would not inform the authorities. Early on Tuesday morning, they were let go. The victims went to a friend’s house and immediately called the police.

The information released said that the man and the woman were later taken to a hospital. Although there is no updated news on their health status at this time, authorities said that the man, who was stabbed, is very likely to survive.

With Monday night’s incident, the city of Aurora — the same city that has given its name to the deportation operation that president-elect Donald Trump intends to carry out — is once again making headlines and, most likely, serving as an excuse for Republicans to justify why, once in power, they will begin to expel thousands of “criminals” from the country.

Aurora, in Trump’s campaigns

The Edge at Lowry apartment complex, owned by CBZ Management, had already made headlines with its six three-story buildings and brick-colored walls. In mid-August 2024, a video went viral of a group of armed men walking up the stairs of the complex and knocking on the door of one of the apartments.

It was then said that they were members of the Tren de Aragua, the largest criminal gang in Venezuela, which is led from Tocorón prison, some 140 kilometers southwest of Caracas, by Héctor “Niño” Guerrero, sentenced to 17 years for drug trafficking, homicide, identity theft and concealment of weapons of war, among other charges.

With the latest wave of migration that has caused more than eight million Venezuelans to flee the economic and political crisis in the South American country, members of a gang that the U.S. Treasury Department considers “a serious criminal threat to the entire region” have also moved north. In July, the State Department named it a “Transnational Criminal Organization” and offered a $12 million reward for information leading to the identification of gang members. In the U.S., authorities have said that they operate with a greater presence in states such as New York, California, Texas, Florida, Washington D.C., Montana, and Wyoming.

Donald Trump and his team quickly realized that focusing their campaign on criminal gangs that “threaten national security” could win them quite a few voters. The viral video of the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua came at the right time to show the country the supposed need to cleanse it of 11 million migrants, the plan he has in mind for his next term.

Since then, the video of these men has accompanied him in the projections he made in each of his presidential campaigns. On October 11 Trump visited Aurora, a city of about 400,000 residents, where he would never have gone except to win the support of voters fearful of the new migrant arrivals. The city of Aurora — and specifically the Edge at Lowry apartment complex— has been branded a hotbed of crime and criminal activity, and occupied by gangs, but authorities say the situation is not as dire as it has been made out to be.

Immigrant advocacy groups like the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition have spoken out against the president-elect’s remarks and Operation Aurora. In a statement, they said it was “a direct attack on the values that define Colorado.”

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2024-12-19
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Sixteen undocumented Venezuelan nationals are being held in federal custody in connection with a violent home invasion during which two fellow Venezuelans were held and tortured for hours
Tren de Aragua puts spotlight back on Aurora, the city that gave its name to Trump’s deportation plan