"Operation Aurora": Trump announces plan to deport illegal immigrants from criminal gangs
The former president made the announcement during a rally in Aurora, Colorado, a town heavily affected by transnational criminal gangs that drew national attention during the 2024 presidential election.
At a rally in Aurora, Colorado, former President Donald Trump announced his plan to expel illegal immigrants who belong to criminal gangs like Tren de Aragua, a dangerous Venezuelan gang that began to take root in the United States and already has a presence in several cities across the country.
During his address, Trump formally proposed to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle "every illegal migrant criminal network operating on American soil."
The Alien Enemies Act is technically a wartime authority that allows a president to detain or deport members of an enemy nation.
"My message today is very simple (...) No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the President of the United States," Trump said. He accused the current Democratic administration of allowing criminals into the country because of its lax immigration policies.
"Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world," the former president said. "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."
The former president pointedly mentioned Tren de Aragua, claiming that members of the criminal gang broke into and took over a building in Aurora.
"In Aurora, multiple apartment complexes have been taken over by the savage Venezuelan prison gang known as Tren de Aragua (...) And they're getting bigger all the time because of our stupidity," Trump stated.
The Republican front-runner then vowed he would do everything in his power to make Colorado a "safe" state again, urging the crowd to vote for him in the upcoming presidential election in November.
"Colorado is going to vote for me because I am going to make Colorado safe again. We're going to make you safe. We're going to do it fast," Trump stated. He also promised an iron fist not to take back deported criminal immigrants.
First, the former president said that, if elected in November, he would "send elite squads of ICE, Border Patrol and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country."
"And if they come back into our country, they will be told it is an automatic ten-year sentence in jail with no possibility of parole," the Republican leader continued. He culminated his idea by stating that he would call for the death penalty for any immigrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer.