Donald Trump on Friday detoured from battleground states to visit a Colorado suburb that's been in the news over illegal immigration as he drives a message that migrants are causing chaos in smaller American cities and towns, often using false or misleading claims to do so.
Trump’s rally in Aurora marks the first time ahead of the November election that either presidential campaign has visited Colorado, which reliably votes Democratic statewide.
The visit comes after the Republican nominee has pushed false and misleading narratives about a Venezuelan criminal gang, Tren de Aragua, taking over the city roughly 10 miles east of Denver, another effort to paint Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden as soft on crime and weak on immigration.
"Colorado is going to vote for me because I am going to make Colorado safe again," Trump vowed, painting a picture of apartment complexes overrun by “barbaric thugs" – despite city officials rebuking his claims – and laying the blame at the feet of Harris and Biden.
"No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the president of the United States," Trump said, adding of migrants: "We have to live with these animals, but we’re not going to live with them for long, you watch."
But city officials have painted a different picture, repeatedly pushing back on Trump's claims.
"We are not, by any means, overtaken by Venezuelan gangs," Aurora police chief Todd Chamberlain said last month. Much like other cities across the country, the crime rate in Aurora, Colorado, is on the decline.
The matter that brought the Denver suburb to Trump’s attention occurred in August in a single block of the city, in an apartment complex housing Venezuelan migrants.
It was then that video surfaced of heavily armed men going door to door in the complex, where the New York-based owners claimed a Venezuelan gang was extorting rent from tenants. Someone was shot and killed outside the complex around the time the video was recorded, police said.
Now, two months later, authorities say they have identified six suspects and arrested one. Tenants of the building say police check in regularly and that the area is safe.
Multiple studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. But Aurora also is an example of how Trump has been able to use real but isolated episodes of migrant violence to tar an entire population. He uses those examples to paint a picture of a country in chaos due to what he regularly calls an immigrant “invasion.”
His comments are similar to debunked claims he made about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican who had occasionally criticized Trump when he was a member of Congress, did not attend the rally, saying in a statement that "reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been grossly exaggerated." He offered to brief Trump privately.
Colorado Democrats, on the other hand, criticized Trump for holding his event on the outskirts of the city and for doubling down on his false claims.
"What Donald Trump is doing is victimizing some of the most vulnerable people in our community," said Colorado Rep. Jason Crow.
Residents who spoke to Spectrum News were split on Trump's visit and the situation in Aurora. Some, like Robin Parker, said that they were "really glad" the former president came, while Julie Stubbs, who said she has lived in the area for 25 years, called conditions in the city "horrible."
"Downtown is horrible," Stubbs said. "Aurora is absolutely horrible. It’s actually a lot worse than what they’re saying on TV."
Others, like Denise Taylor, praised police and Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, saying that there were problems in the area, but "they straightened it out." She also said that Trump was only there for political purposes, adding: "You really need to be ashamed of yourself."