‘Operation Aurora’: Trump details plan to remove migrant gang members

DENVER (KDVR) — Former President Donald Trump announced “Operation Aurora,” a plan to remove migrants who entered the country illegally and may be involved in gangs, during a rally in Aurora on Friday.

“I am announcing today that upon taking office, we will have an Operation Aurora at the federal level to expedite the removals of these savage gangs,” Trump said.

Trump said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to “target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.”

“We will send elite squads of ICE, Border Patrol and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country,” Trump said.

Trump added that there will be an automatic 10-year sentence in jail without the possibility of parole for any of those individuals who return.

“And, I’m hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer,” Trump said.

The former president has been talking about Aurora ever since a video of men carrying guns at an apartment complex on Dallas Street went viral. Trump has made claims that the men in the video were part of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, saying they have taken over the city.

Officials have confirmed the presence of the gang in Colorado . However, the Aurora Police Department said it does not have information leading them to believe that any of the suspects in the video are connected to the gang or any criminal organization. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said late last month that the investigation is ongoing but, said the gang has not taken over the city .

An Act Respecting Alien Enemies: Alien Enemies Act of 1798

The Alien Enemies Act was one of four laws that were part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

The series of laws was spearheaded by the Federalist Party, which believed that the Democratic-Republican critique of Federalist policies was disloyal and feared that non-citizens would sympathize with the French during a war.

The laws were passed to tighten restrictions on foreign-born Americans and limit critical speech of the government as the United States was anticipating a war with France, according to government archives.

“These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, authorized the president to deport ‘aliens,’ and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime,” the National Archives government website states.

The Alien Enemies Act declared that whenever a war is declared between the U.S. and any foreign nation or government, or an invasion is perpetrated, attempted or threatened against the U.S., the president would have the power to detain or deport all natives, citizens, denizens or subjects of the hostile nation or government. The law initially applied to males and was amended to include women by Congress in 1918.

All of those laws were expired or repealed by 1802, except for the Alien Enemies Act, which was “invoked during World War II to incarcerate people such as Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps,” according to History.com .

Those internment camps included one in Colorado, known as Amache or the Granada Relocation Center , which was home to over 10,000 incarcerated people between 1942 and 1945.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.