Trump amps up nativist message with sweeping immigrant deportation proposal | Donald Trump

Donald Trump ratcheted up his policies of nativism and xenophobia on Friday by announcing a sweeping plan to deport Venezuelans he claimed had “infected” a once-peaceful Colorado town.

The Republican presidential candidate held a campaign rally in Aurora on a stage decorated with posters showing mugshots of people in orange prison uniforms with descriptions such as “illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela.”

Trump told the crowd: “I'm announcing today that after I take office, we will conduct a federal 'Operation Aurora' to expedite the removal of these brutal gangs.” He promised to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a law of 1798, which allows the president to deport any non-citizen from a country with which the United States is at war.

“We will deploy elite units of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and federal law enforcement to hunt down, arrest and deport every last member of an illegal alien gang until there is not a single one left in this country,” he continued Crowd roared in agreement.

If they return to the United States, Trump said, they will automatically serve a 10-year prison sentence without parole. “I hereby call for the death penalty for any migrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer. With your vote we will achieve complete victory over these sadistic monsters. “It will happen very quickly,” he said.

The rally represented a detour for Trump because Colorado is not a battleground state and is certain to vote for his Democratic rival Kamala Harris. But recent events gave him an opportunity to exploit a flood of local rumors to push his anti-immigrant message.

Aurora, a city of about 340,000 people near Denver, hit the headlines in August when a video circulated showing gunmen walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan immigrants. Trump amplified the story, falsely portraying the city as being overrun by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TDA).

Authorities say the incident occurred in a single block and the area is safe again, noting that the local crime rate is actually declining. Aurora's Republican Mayor Mike Coffman called Trump's claims “vastly exaggerated” and emphasized: “The portrayal is by no means accurate.”

TDA's origins date back more than a decade to a notorious prison. In July, the Biden administration sanctioned the gang, adding it to a list of transnational criminal organizations alongside El Salvador's MS-13 and Italy's mafia Camorra and offering a $12 million reward for the arrest of three leaders out of .

At Friday's rally, Trump played a series of news clips, accompanied by dramatic music, detailing the crimes of the TDA and the murder of U.S. citizens by undocumented immigrants, as well as some seemingly evasive answers from Harris, the vice president Trump as a “criminal” and the “worst border czar” in the history of the country.

“My message today is very simple,” he said. “No one who inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris inflicted on this community should ever become president of the United States.”

The former president promised that Nov. 5, when the election takes place, would be a “day of liberation,” prompting chants of “USA!” USA!” from the crowd.

“I will save Aurora and every city that has been invaded and conquered. These cities have been conquered and we will put these evil and bloodthirsty criminals in prison or drive them out of our country and we will do it very, very effectively. It will happen very, very quickly. I will drive the hell out of our country,” he said.

Trump later added: “We talk a lot about Venezuela because Aurora is actually infected by Venezuela, but they come from all countries.”

The remark was reminiscent of previous dehumanizing statements in which Trump claimed that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and suggested earlier this week that those suspected in murder cases had “bad genes.”

Similarly, on Friday, Stephen Miller, a former top aide who is expected to take a senior role in the White House if Trump wins, pointed to the posters on stage as he addressed Trump's appearance the crowd turned.

“Look at all these photos around me,” Miller said. “Are these the kids you grew up with?” Are these the neighbors you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you want in your town?” The crowd roared “No” in response.

The ex-president has long made immigration his favorite issue and has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history when he returns to the White House. In recent months, he has targeted certain smaller, immigrant-heavy communities, with tensions rising locally over resources and some longtime residents raising concerns about sudden demographic shifts.

In the past two years, more than 40,000 immigrants have arrived in the Denver metro area, including many Venezuelan families fleeing poverty and violence. But Colorado's Democratic leaders accuse Trump and other Republicans of exaggerating the problems in Aurora.

Representative Jason Crow told the Associated Press: “What is happening is minimal and isolated. And to be clear: it's never acceptable, right? We never say that any level is acceptable. But it's not an increase. It's not a change. There is no takeover of any part of this city, any apartment complex. It didn't happen. It’s a lie.”

Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, also spread falsehoods about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they said Haitian immigrants stole and ate pets. The disinformation campaign led to bomb threats, school closures and forced evictions.

Trump has said he will revoke temporary protected status that allows Haitians to stay in the United States because of widespread poverty and violence in their home country.

Democrats have condemned Trump for rejecting a bipartisan border security bill in the Senate because it could have neutralized immigration as an issue. Harris told a Univision town hall in Nevada on Thursday: “He would prefer to address a problem rather than fix a problem.”