The Policies Enabling Illegal Alien Street Gangs

During an interview on ABC ‘s Sunday talk show “This Week”  correspondent Martha Raddatz decided to fact check Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance regarding former president Trump’s indictment of the Biden/Harris administration’s open border policy for allowing the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to take over parts of Aurora, Colorado. “The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes—apartment complexes and the mayor said, ‘Our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns,’ ” Raddatz, told Vance. “Martha, do you hear yourself?” replied Vance. “Only ‘a handful of apartment complexes’ in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’ open border”?  The exchange highlights the major media’s effort to minimize policies by progressive politicians which have caused unprecedented increases in crime nationwide, and particularly in sanctuary states.

Aurora, a suburb of Denver with 400,000 residents, is experiencing big-city crime similar to New York City due to these policies. Michael Ruiz of Fox News reports that the same Venezuelan gang is terrorizing New York’s Times Square and other popular locations during the day, and sleeping for free in the famed Roosevelt Hotel at night. Like Colorado, New York is a sanctuary state, so the illegal migrant gang members have nothing to fear from the federal immigration authorities. Also like Colorado, New York takes a compassionate, soft-on-crime approach to criminals.  The mostly juvenile gang members in New York have been able to swarm around people in Times Square and rob them of their phones, money, jewelry and purses which impunity, due to the state’s non-existent consequences for juvenile crime. “We know they have access to guns, evident by the fact that they’ve done gunpoint robberies, and they’ve been brazen enough to showcase pistols in and around their social media,” NYPD Assistant Chief Jason Savino told reporters. In Aurora, the gang members have been able to invade apartment complexes, terrorize residents until they leave, then move in other illegals from Venezuela. Last month at least 10 individuals affiliated with the gang were arrested after gang members gained a “stranglehold” on the Whispering Pines Apartments complex and engaged in extortion, child prostitution and other criminal acts, according to a Denver law firm that investigated the situation.

Unlike New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has challenged the Biden administration on its open border policy and complained about the state’s soft-on-crime policies, liberal Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman downplays the problem, “The city and state have not been ‘taken over’ or ‘invaded’ or ‘occupied’ by migrant gangs. The incidents that have occurred in Aurora, a city of 400,000 people, have been limited to a handful of specific apartment complexes, and our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns and will continue to do so.”

One could wonder if Coffman had cited Biden’s open border policy for causing the problem, would that trigger a Justice Department indictment for corruption like the one recently announced against Mayor Adams.

The short answer is that progressive federal and state policies have flooded America with millions of illegals including thousands of criminals who are preying upon citizens while the media and the politicians currently in power, are denying that this is a serious problem.