Trump calls Aurora a ‘war zone.’ Even its Republican mayor disagrees.

AURORA, Colorado — Donald Trump has described this apartment complex in Aurora as a “war zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs intent on taking over the city of 400,000.

But at the dwellings at the center of the controversy, on a quiet street near a local community college, children played outside Friday as residents and community organizers prepared for a cookout and neighborhood fiesta later that evening.

“This is not a war zone. We want to celebrate the community as we know it, which is a vibrant community known for its diversity,” said Lamine Kane, an organizer with Colorado People’s Alliance, a nonprofit focused on economic, environmental and immigrant justice. “Any rhetoric that's being divisive around the country or anywhere, we totally reject it, and we're just here to celebrate the community as it is.”

Since Trump thrust the apartment complex, and the Denver suburb of Aurora more broadly, into the national spotlight, city officials have pushed back on misinformation from the former president, whose narratives about an “invasion” of migrants has become a focal point of his campaign.

Aurora city spokesperson Ryan Luby told POLITICO in a statement that local police identified 10 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and nine had been arrested. The city’s Republican mayor, former five-term congressman Mike Coffer, has repeatedly tried to tamp down fears that his city has been taken over by migrant gangs.

“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said in a statement.

Trump first thrust Aurora, a blue suburb in a blue state, into the national political consciousness last month during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. In the same breath as he claimed Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the pets of the people that live there,” he claimed members of Tren de Aragua were “taking over” Aurora.

Weeks later, Trump promised to visit Springfield and Aurora — both of which had spun into a conspiratorial political vortex. Trump’s campaign has since described Aurora as a “war zone,” citing the over 40,000 migrants who have descended on nearby Denver since 2022, bringing “chaos and fear with them.”

Many of the people at the apartments in Aurora were sent to Colorado from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott as part of a broader effort to call attention to the immigration issue by transferring migrants to cities and states run by Democrats.

During Trump’s brief swing through Colorado on Friday, as he rallied miles from the state’s largest airport before departing to Reno, Nevada, later in the day, residents of Aurora and the surrounding community who had come to support the former president told POLITICO they were afraid of the migrants and supported Trump’s promise of mass deportations.

“People are coming in and flooding our streets,” said Cindie Day, who works in Medicare sales. Michelle MacFarland, who works in consulting, said she no longer let her children go into the city anymore “because it’s just too dangerous — and that’s new.”

“It's not a feature of our imagination. We are seeing this,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) told POLITICO.

But officials in Aurora have repeatedly denied Trump’s assertions that Venezuelan gang members are taking over the city.

“The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true,” Luby said.

Ahead of Trump’s rally, a slew of Democratic lawmakers in the state — including its governor, both senators and the congressman who represents Aurora in the House, Rep. Jason Crow — slammed the former president for spreading misinformation about the city.

“President Trump doesn't seem to care who he hurts with his words and his rhetoric or the consequences of what he says,” said Gov. Jared Polis, noting that crime in Aurora is “significantly down” over the past two years.

Not all the officials in the city agreed with the mayor and governor. At the rally, City Council Member Danielle Jurinsky said police officers had come to her and told her “we need help” to deal with the gang.

“Make no mistake of it, these pictures you see, these mugshots you see, this is not a figment of my imagination,” Jurinsky said.

“If we had an armed group of gang members roaming the hallways of our apartment complexes, those gang members would have never made it out of the building without being led out in handcuffs,” said Darren Weekly, the Republican sheriff of Douglas County, which includes part of Aurora.

Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly, speaking on behalf of the Trump campaign, said that local officials in Aurora have raised issues with gangs in Aurora and used Trump’s appearance to criticize Harris.

As Trump spoke on stage in the city on on Friday, he did what he does best — sell a dark, Trump-branded version of reality.

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to pray upon innocent American citizens,” Trump said. “And no place is it more evident than right here, because in Aurora, multiple apartment complexes have been taken over by the savage Venezuela prison gang known as Tren de Aragua.”

Standing outside his car at one of the apartment buildings Trump has vilified, resident Heribert Pacheco, who is from Venezuela, shook his head when asked about Trump’s claims. “When they say that it’s a war, that it’s this thing, that there are bad people, I know that's a lie,” he said in Spanish.

He said there were some people “causing harm” in the community, and who should be put “in prison.” But “when one says Venezuelans are acting badly, we don't like that,” Pacheco said. “Like all people, we’re working for our families to get ahead.”