Former President Donald Trump said he will soon visit Aurora, a city he has falsely claimed has been taken over by violent, Venezuelan immigrants.
Trump announced plans to visit Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, “in the next two weeks” during a Wednesday night campaign speech in Uniondale, New York.
“You may never see me again, but that’s OK,” Trump said to the crowd, implying that the two cities were dangerous. “I got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield.”
Trump previously identified Aurora and Springfield as cities from which he would deport immigrants if he is elected in November.
“These are violent people that they’re allowing into our country. It is truly an invasion and we’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said Wednesday night. “… We’re going to take care of Ohio, and we’re going to take care of Colorado.”
The former president has continued to push false and misleading claims about the two cities — including debunked reports that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield — to highlight his plans to deport millions of people.
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“While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward,” Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday, addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s conference. “Now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, mass deportation, in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?”
During a nationally televised debate with Harris on Sept. 10, Trump falsely claimed violent immigrants “are taking over the towns,” further fueling a false narrative that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have overrun Aurora.
Aurora police and city leaders have acknowledged the gang’s presence, but say the members’ activities have been isolated. Aurora police said they have identified 10 suspected TdA members and arrested nine of them.
The crimes connected to the Tren de Aragua members include two shootings, several assaults, thefts and instances of threatening people with guns. The allegations also include intimate partner domestic violence and disputes between roommates.
The allegations do not include evidence of broad, organized, systemic gang-led extortion or control of apartment complexes in the city, police have said.
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