Sanctuary City policy drives violent migrant gang to suburbs: ‘It’s a nationwide problem’

While Denver’s suburbs don’t share sanctuary city policies, the influx of migrants into the Mile High City has spilled over into the city. Now, neighbors are facing an unprecedented wave of activity from a notorious Venezuelan prison gang.

Officials in Aurora, about nine miles east of Denver, told Fox News Digital that the Tren de Aragua gang has gained a strong foothold in their city, taking over apartment complexes and engaging in violent crime and sex trafficking.

“We have entire complexes under gang control right now — complexes where employees have been beaten up, they’ve been threatened, their families have been threatened (and) complexes where there are no employees on the premises,” said Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky. “These complexes are run by this Tren de Aragua gang.

“They start brokering apartments themselves when someone leaves out of fear or something. They go in and take pictures of the apartment themselves. Then, I’m told, within a few hours a Venezuelan family moves in.

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Migrants carrying their belongings walk through an illegal tent camp as city officials close it down in Denver, Colorado, January 3, 2024. (Trevor Hughes, Trevor Hughes/USA Today Network)

“Parts of the city are completely under the control of this gang. The local media is downplaying it,” she said. “I believe politics is being played with people’s lives. … Nothing is being done to help the American citizens who are trapped under the control of this gang.”

Jurinsky told Fox News Digital that calls to emergency services are increasing, especially because police are so busy.

“The number of emails I receive for help from residents and business owners is much higher. The allegations that are being made (about gang activity) are types of crime that I have not heard of on a regular basis in our city,” she said.

Suspected members of Tren de Aragua are accused of a series of high-profile crimes in the United States, including the murder of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, and the shooting of two New York Police Department officers during an arrest in June.

Its leaders recently gave the green light to its members across the country to shoot police officers who try to disrupt their criminal activities — even in Denver.

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This footage from a Customs and Border Protection intelligence bulletin shows Tren De Aragua’s tattoos and identification information. (Fox News)

Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirino, a Tren de Aragua leader known as “Galleta,” the Spanish word for “cookie,” was arrested after brutally beating a man at an Aurora apartment complex that had been taken over by the gang, the New York Post reported. He was arrested again in July in a shooting at the same complex that left two people wounded, the outlet reported.

According to Homeland Security sources, Pacheco-Chirino has been apprehended and released to the Post at least twice since crossing the southern border in 2022.

Denver, a city of about 710,000, tops the nation in terms of migrant arrivals per capita. According to The Colorado Sun, more than 40,000 migrants have arrived through the southern border since 2022.

The city has spent an estimated $68 million to provide them with aid, even cutting back on emergency services. Meanwhile, Jurinsky and other members of the Aurora City Council passed a resolution 7-3 pledging not to provide support or resources to migrants coming to their city.

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Denver, a city of about 710,000, tops the nation in terms of the number of migrants per capita, with more than 40,000 migrants having arrived through the southern border since 2022. (Chet Strange/AFP)

“We are not going to help solve this migrant crisis,” Jurinsky told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”

Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon said that when Denver passed a bill in 2017 that chronicled the city’s resistance to cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, followed by a host of other initiatives to help migrants and asylum seekers, it was clear the ripple effects would have on surrounding communities.

“Not too long ago, we saw this influx of 40,000 migrants (into Denver),” Laydon said. “Douglas County rang the bell and said, ‘Look, from a common sense perspective, there’s no way this wouldn’t have a huge impact on the resources in the Denver metropolitan area — and it did.'”

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In an effort to curb the growing numbers of migrants, Laydon said his region has passed an ordinance banning unscheduled bus stops in the area and disallowing “San Antonio buses dropping off immigrants.”

However, efforts to control the influx have been thwarted by Colorado state law HB19-1124, passed in 2019, which prohibits municipalities from communicating directly with federal immigration authorities.

Douglas and five other counties in Colorado have joined forces to sue the state, arguing that the law violates the U.S. Supremacy Clause, which prohibits states from violating federal law, and the Intergovernmental Relationships Provision of the Colorado Constitution, which prohibits laws that prevent local governments from cooperating/contracting with the federal government.

HONDURASIAN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS ARRESTED FOR RAPE OF GIRL, 14, STABBERS DURING KNIFE-POINT ROBBERY

Aurora, with a population of about 390,000, has become home to the Tren de Aragua gang in Colorado, officials said. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Image)

“Our local law enforcement would like to have the ability to communicate with local immigration officials,” Laydon said. “We’ve been made aware that there’s definitely been an increase in property crimes, assaults, human trafficking, and it’s specific issues with the cartels coming out of Venezuela.”

Despite their inability to communicate with federal immigration authorities, the city of Aurora is home to an ICE detention center, and Jurinsky said it is “bursting at the seams.”

“Every week they just open the back door and let hundreds of them out,” Jurinsky said.

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Joe Gamaldi, national vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told Fox News Digital: “This is not a Denver problem or an Aurora problem. This is a nationwide problem.”

“There are gangs from all over South America that come here and gain a foothold in our country,” he said Monday. “We have taught criminals that you can commit crimes without being held accountable, and everyone is surprised when that is exactly what they do.”

In Aurora, he said, it will take “a significant investment in their gang division to put these guys behind bars” to address the problem. However, the city will need “a criminal justice system that charges these guys and deports them.

“The police officers out there are going to do their job. They’re going to catch these guys and put them in jail. The question is, do they stay in jail or do they get deported? Don’t give them sweetheart deals. This isn’t rocket science. If people rob people with guns, lock them up for 20, 25 years.”

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Chris Swecker, former chief of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, said the influx of gang members was “predictable and preventable” and called it “Mariel Boatlift 2.0.” Swecker pointed to the mass emigration of Cubans to the United States in the 1980s and compared it to the rise of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.

“I would have run down the border when this came up and had agents out there questioning every non-Mexican that came across the border. You would have had informants as well,” Swecker said of possible ways to address the nationwide problem. “It’s a matter of being creative and confident enough to divide the problems.

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“This is where federal agencies should get involved,” he added. “The agency needs to get involved with ATF and DEA, share their intelligence and approach this as an international crime problem.”