US: Grassroot Groups Plan to Resist Mass Deportation

Through racist, anti-migrant claims, falsehoods, and fearmongering, the Colorado suburb of Aurora has emerged as the right-wing’s potential staging ground for US President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Trump has pledged to launch the largest mass deportation operation in US history, expelling between 15 to 20 million migrants in an effort that will have ripple effects across working class communities and the entire US economy. The current US President has dubbed his mass deportation effort “Operation Aurora,” after a town that has become the epicenter of anti-migrant hysteria. 

The bulk of this hysteria began with a viral video showing a group of armed men at The Edge at Lowry apartment complex in Aurora. This video circulated widely across right-wing social media spheres, fueling claims that this apartment complex, as well as the entire city, had been taken over by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. These claims were fueled by right-wing political figures including Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky, who claimed that there was a “complete gang takeover of parts of our city.”

City officials refuted such claims, including Aurora’s mayor, Michael Coffman, a Republican. Residents of The Edge placed the blame squarely on their landlord, claiming that the Brooklyn, New York based CBZ Management, has exploited anti-migrant frenzy as an excuse to neglect repairs in the building. Mayor Coffman himself has dubbed CBZ Management as “out of state slumlords.” 

This did not stop the right-wing political machine from capitalizing on the rumors to build up anti-immigrant sentiment. Trump himself has used the frenzy surrounding the city to promote his mass deportation plan on multiple occasions. At a September campaign rally, Trump claimed that his mass deportation operation would begin in both Springfield, Ohio, the city where Trump infamously claimed that migrants were eating residents’ pets, and Aurora. 

Trump also staged a campaign rally in Aurora on October 11 of last year, in which top Trump advisor and alleged white nationalist Stephen Miller declared that the then-candidate would create “a country of, by and for Americans, and Americans only.” At the same rally, Trump repeated falsehoods that the city had been “invaded and conquered” by Tren de Aragua. 

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” said Trump at the rally in Aurora. “And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here.”

Trump and his allies have painted a picture of Aurora as being overrun by migrant crime, however, according to data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, crime in Aurora and the wider Denver area has been declining since late 2022. In 2024, Aurora recorded 37 homicides, the lowest number in four years. Data consistently shows the immigrants, in particular undocumented immigrants, commit crime at lower rates than those born in the US. 

Aurora fights back

How did the city of Aurora end up at the center of anti-migrant falsehoods, to fuel support for the expulsion of millions of workers? 

“Trump saw an opportunity to demonize immigrants in order to win an election,” said Nate Kassa, an organizer in Aurora with the East Colfax Community Collective (EC3), which has worked with the largely immigrant tenants of CBZ Management. EC3 has entered into coalition with grassroots and immigrant groups in order to fight mass deportations in the area. “He labeled these immigrants as gang members, so that he could demonize them, so that people would feel motivated to vote for him.”

EC3, alongside organizations such as the Colorado Immigrant Rights Network and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, are organizing communities to fight Trump’s program of mass deportations. Among these plans include a demonstration on January 25, which has been endorsed by several organizations including the Aurora Education Association, the Aurora Immigrant Protection Network, the Center for Freedom and Justice-Colorado, and the Colorado People’s Alliance. 

This demonstration is “bringing together different organizations and people in the community who are disgusted with Trump’s racist rhetoric and with his promises to deport millions of immigrants,” Kassa told Peoples Dispatch. “We’re taking the streets to bring together diverse sectors of the community, to stand for immigrants, to stand against different aspects of Trump’s right-wing agenda.”

“We’re seeing a huge community effort to band together immigrants rights organizations, teachers unions, nonprofits, that are all coming together because they recognize that we have to stand together as a community,” Kassa described.

Katie Leonard, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation in Denver, described the efforts that community activists have undertaken to begin to mount a grassroots movement against Trump’s policies, and protect the area’s immigrant communities from the threat of mass deportations. “The first step really has been spreading the rapid response hotline information of local community organizations, so people can report [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement/ICE] activity in the community and so that we can understand what’s going on.” Organizers like Leonard are working to ensure that immigrant workers have a profound understanding of their rights when it comes to interactions with ICE, through “Know Your Rights” trainings and community meetings.

Kassa claims that the immigrant workers he organizes with have “a lot of fear” of Trump’s policies, especially given that the residents of the apartment complexes that have been the site of rumors of Venezuelan gang activity have been visited by right-wing agitators. “Right-wing racists” have “come out and harassed residents,” Kassa claims. 

Leonard echoes these claims, and has led efforts to provide community patrols of these buildings in order to keep residents safe when there are right-wing threats. “If tenants are feeling unsafe or threatened, they will reach out to community organizations, community organizers and PSL members,” Leonard described. “And we will show up to make sure that we’re keeping an eye on what’s going on.” 

This community patrol work was born out of grassroots efforts to support tenants who were concerned about ICE raids at the Edge at Lowry apartments, anchored by the American Friends Service Committee.

“This is a diverse and strong community,” Kassa said of immigrant workers in Aurora. “No matter how big Trump’s policies are to oppress and suppress our community, we know that we have power.”

“These are breadwinners, parents, family members, beloved community members. Immigrants are the beating heart of our community here in Aurora,” Leonard said.