How a vacant Colorado apartment complex became a national battleground over immigration

(CNN) — 1568 Nome Street stands abandoned today, its windows and doors boarded up and signs warning of danger outside. No one lives there anymore—the city of Aurora, Colorado, evicted hundreds of tenants and closed the apartment complex last month, citing numerous code violations. But presidential candidate Donald Trump keeps bringing it up.

“Look at Aurora, Colorado. They’re taking over cities. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in by force,” the former president said in a debate Tuesday night, pointing to the city as a harbinger of what uncontrolled migration could bring to cities across America.

Just days earlier, at a rally on Saturday, Trump had claimed without evidence that Venezuelan gangs were taking over large parts of Colorado — and he had hinted at bloodshed to come. “You know, getting them out is going to be a bloody story,” he said.

But what exactly is going on in Aurora? For weeks, rumors have been circulating that the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is running amok in the city, terrorizing a handful of apartment buildings, including the complex at 1568 Nome Street.

One of the owners of the condemned building told CNN that it and other buildings he owns have been taken over by Tren de Aragua — a claim that has been amplified by some local Republican officials and political candidates. He did not want his name used because of the negative publicity surrounding the property. Viral videos have also claimed to prove this; the footage, which has not been verified by CNN, appears to show armed men walking through hallways, in one case kicking down a door, followed by several women and small children.

But Aurora police say the gang influence is “isolated,” and the city of Aurora has countered that the real problem is poor housing conditions — apartments often had no heat or running water and were infested with pests and mold. One of the now-evicted tenants has also filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to recoup rent for the months the building was reportedly uninhabitable. The lawsuit details more than a year of code enforcement proceedings brought by the city against the building’s owners, along with a “litany of complaints” filed with the city by residents. Residents said the property had bed bugs and black mold, along with a lack of heat and hot water, according to the legal filing.

It’s true that many of the complex’s residents are recent immigrants from Venezuela, housing advocates working with the tenants told CNN. But was 1568 Nome Street condemned because it was terrorized by a Venezuelan gang — or, instead, because of the cockroaches, bedbugs and other problems unleashed by a negligent landlord on vulnerable tenants?

What is Tren de Aragua?

Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang that emerged from a Venezuelan prison, is “the most disruptive criminal organization currently operating in Latin America,” retired Gen. Óscar Naranjo, Colombia’s former vice president and head of the Colombian National Police, told CNN earlier this summer.

Local and federal U.S. officials have told CNN that the gang, called TdA by some, is now operating in the U.S. In July, the Treasury Department sanctioned the group as a transnational criminal organization, warning that the gang is involved in human trafficking and debt bondage. The State Department has also offered up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest of its leaders.

Terrorizing an apartment complex filled with Venezuelan migrants would not be far removed from the group’s established modus operandi, according to witnesses interviewed by CNN. In Bogota, Colombia, Tren de Aragua has a track record of taking over low-income housing and turning it into bases, they say.

One incident fueled speculation about the gang’s grip on Aurora: Local police announced this summer that they had arrested a man known as “Cookie” or “Galleta,” whom they linked to a July 28 shooting outside 1568 Nome Street and described the man as “a documented member of Tren de Aragua.”

Police have vehemently rejected theories that the gang has taken over buildings in the city, but say they are closely monitoring crimes allegedly committed by Tren de Aragua, even creating a special interdepartmental task force “to specifically address concerns” about this.

“Based on our initial investigative work, we believe the reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated,” police said in an Aug. 28 statement.

On Wednesday, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky issued a joint statement acknowledging that Trump mentioned their city during the presidential debate.

“TdA has not ‘taken over’ the city. The exaggerated claims being fueled by social media and via certain news organizations are simply not true. Again, TdA’s presence in Aurora is limited to specific properties, which the city has been targeting in various ways for months,” they said.

They announced that Aurora police had linked ten people in the city to Tren de Aragua and that there were problems with certain apartment buildings.

“In line with these arrests, we can now also confirm that criminal activity, including TdA matters, had a significant impact on these properties.”

What tenants say

Several people who lived and worked at 1568 Nome Street told CNN they were not aware of organized crime there, but that it was ultimately the condition of the building that made it uninhabitable.

Shayra Caez, 44, told CNN she worked as a cleaner on the property and never saw armed people in the buildings like those in the videos circulating online. “I never saw these people walking around with guns or anything like that,” she said.

“Everybody started talking about gangs and stuff like that” after a shooting at the building earlier this year, Caez said.

Asked about the evictions, however, she said, “To be honest, I think it was more about the code violations,” noting that basic problems with the building went unresolved for years — including a mold infestation that was painted over, and workers tasked with fixing the problems were never paid. “No hot water, no heat … when people came to fix the boilers, for example, he never paid them,” she said.

The class-action lawsuit filed against the building’s owners last month also speculates that one of the reasons the city deemed the building uninhabitable was the owners’ decision to stop paying the water bill in July.

The building owner interviewed by CNN blamed gang activity for making the property impossible to maintain, and city figures provided to CNN show that the number of crimes investigated by police at the complex more than doubled between 2022 and 2023, with dozens more crimes reported through late July of this year. However, a city spokesperson told CNN that the condemnation of 1568 Nome Street ultimately came down to the owner’s failure — and criticized “alternative narratives” as a fabrication.

“The city has documented substantial, long-standing, unresolved code violations and other poor conditions on the property over the past several years … Despite the city’s exhaustive efforts to work with the property owners and their property management group, CBZ Management, they have failed to address the violations and have not been cooperative,” Ryan Luby, the city’s deputy communications director, told CNN last month.

Luby and several tenants shared documentation with CNN of rodent infestations, uncollected trash, water leaks and broken windows.

“No one in the city denies or ignores the possibility of organized crime on the premises of 1568 Nome St. or any other property. However, what is critical for the public and the property owners to understand is that the recent concerns they are expressing about possible gang activity on their premises at 1568 Nome St. are immaterial and irrelevant to the longstanding code violations and poor condition of the property” that caused the building to close,” Luby added.

CNN has reached out to CBZ Management for comment. When asked about these allegations, the building owner interviewed by CNN insisted that gangs are “100%” causing the problems in the building.

Some residents are now also blaming the city for allowing the issue to gain national attention. In a Sept. 1 op-ed, Colorado Sentinel editor Dave Perry called on city officials to “crack down on Venezuelan gang hysteria,” noting that northwest Aurora has a history of crime and other problems that predate the last wave of migration.

“This horrific attempt to terrorize Aurora residents in hopes of swaying voters to support anti-immigration candidates and causes must stop,” he wrote.

Fear is already percolating through the city, with Venezuelan migrants on the receiving end, several people in Aurora told CNN. A young Venezuelan man named Danilo, who immigrated to the U.S. last year, told CNN he hasn’t noticed any gang activity in his building, but has struggled recently to find steady work due to a stigma attached to his nationality.

“I’ve tried to get a job here. They don’t want us because we’re from Venezuela,” the 30-year-old said. “I’ve gone to restaurants and they’ve asked me, ‘Where are you from?’ I’ve said, ‘I’m from Venezuela,’ and they’ve said, ‘No. We only accept Mexicans or people born here.’”

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