Ira Mehlman and the Federation for American Immigration Reform are expressing alarm after a violent Venezuelan street gang is now controlling portions of Aurora, a suburb of Denver.
The street gang is known as Tren de Aragua, or Aruga Train, which formed in a prison in 2012. It is now the largest criminal organization in the lawless South American country.
“This is a direct result of the Biden-Harris policies at the border,” Mehlman argues, “and also the parole program under which many illegal Venezuelans are being allowed into the country anyway."
Jose Ibarra, the illegal alien accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, is a member of Tren de Argua. Instead of being deported, Ibarra was allowed to remain in the U.S. under Biden's parole program.
Aurora's current gang and crime problems can be traced to 2017, when the City of Denver declared itself a “sanctuary city” and announced it would refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, such as ICE. Five years later, the city has now witnessed tens of thousands of illegal aliens enter its city limits who have now poured into the suburbs, including Aurora, according to a Fox News story.
Denver “laid out the welcome mat” for illegals years ago, Mehlman says, “in spite of the fact that the people of these communities don't want this and are paying a huge price."
The danger Tren de Aruga poses to the American public is not new – the gang’s infiltration across the U.S.-Mexico border was being reported as far back as February – but much of the public is now learning about Aurora’s problem thanks to security camera footage (pictured above) outside an apartment. That footage, which has now gone viral, shows armed gang members forcing their way into an apartment.
Danielle Jurinsky, a member of the Aurora City Council, told Fox News this week the gang currently controls “entire [apartment] complexes” where renters have been forcibly removed and Venezuelans were moved in.
Aurora’s mayor, Mike Coffman, confirmed those reports are true in a separate interview with Fox News. The apartments are being used to house illegal aliens which probably allowed the gang to gain control of them, he said.
According to The New York Post, the local gang leader in Aurora is known as Galleta, or Cookie.
Despite those eyewitness accounts, Jurinsky’s account was dismissed as “imagination” by a spokesman for Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis (pictured at right), a Democrat.
According to a Post story, it confronted the Governor’s office with evidence of the apartment takeover, likely referring to the video footage, after the Governor mocked Jurinsky’s concerns.
Reacting to that evidence, a spokesman for Polis said the Governor “really hopes that the city council members in charge stop trashing their own city when they are supposed to keep it safe,” according to the Post.
