A massive raid targeting over 100 gang members last week ended with only 30 arrests, and only one gang member behind bars.
ICE raids in Colorado were thwarted last week by media leaks.
A massive raid targeting over 100 Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members last week ended with only 30 arrests, and of those only one was TdA, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, who was embedded in a pre-dawn raid at the now-infamous Edge Apartments in Lowry, Colo., reported on X.
A local news source, Denverite, documented the raid from inside the apartment complex where they stayed the night. It’s unclear how the media organization knew of the raids beforehand.
“We’ve already identified how this operation got leaked, and I’ll deal with that today. It’s all about controlling the message. I try to be transparent. I promised the American people we’d be transparent, but it’s obvious we can’t have news outlets with us on raids,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said in an interview on Fox News.
Media leaks aren’t the only obstacle ICE is dealing with. A number of advocacy groups have been present during the raids using bullhorns and pamphlets to advise illegal migrants on how best to evade ICE. One group, Colorado Rapid Response Network, has set up a 24/7 hotline for people to report ICE activity.
When asked about the advocacy groups, Homan said, “They’ve crossed the line into impediment. I’m working with the DOJ to get legal guidance. They may find themselves in handcuffs very soon. We’re not going to tolerate it anymore. This is not a game. This is a dangerous job for the men and women of ICE and Border Patrol and all the DOJ agencies. To have that type of interference puts our officers at great risk, and not only our officers, it puts the aliens at great risk, too.”
ICE’s acting director, Caleb Vitello, said on X: “Unfortunately, we have to come to the communities because we don’t get the cooperation we need from the jails. It would be so much easier and so much safer for our agents if we could take these people into custody from a safe environment. But if we have to come out in the community that is what we are going to do.”
Although Trump’s campaign-promised effort to rid Colorado of gang members, dubbed “Operation Aurora,” is off to a rough start, ICE has detained some TdA members.
The DEA along with other three-letter agencies and local partners raided a makeshift nightclub on January 25 in Adams County just before 5 a.m., according to a press release from the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division (RMFD). Officers learned of the invite-only party from social media posts by TdA members. During the raid, ICE determined that of the 49 people present, 41 were illegal, many of them with ties to Venezuela and TdA. The DEA and local officers seized drugs including cocaine, crack cocaine, and pink cocaine — known on the street as “tusi” — as well as several weapons and large amounts of U.S. currency.
DEA Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen told FOX31 that the raid indicated TdA is moving around to escape the pressures in Aurora.
“In the beginning, I think a lot of the focus was on the folks in Aurora, especially after the videos that came out on the internet. But, I think what we’ve seen, like any criminal organization, they morph. When they feel like there is pressure against them so they move to Denver, they move to Littleton; they move to wherever they feel like they can get away from where the pressure is, and so I think that’s what we’ve seen here.”
The arrests come just a few months after Governor Jared Polis called TdA’s presence in Colorado “a figment of [the] imagination.”
National Review previously reported that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston was using government funded nonprofit organizations to funnel illegal immigrants, including TdA members, to neighboring Aurora, a city that recently reaffirmed its non-sanctuary status and passed a resolution banning the transportation of migrants into their city limits.
Johnston told 9News that he believes citizens will participate in “civil disobedience” and that he is willing to go to jail to stop Trump’s deportation efforts.
In an interview with Denverite, Johnston compared Trump’s deportation efforts to Tiananmen Square, saying locals will also protest.
“[It’ll be] more than us having [local police] stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there. It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right? You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.”
Johnston has since tried to walk those comments back saying he’s in favor of deporting violent criminals, but Homan may have his own ideas.
He recently told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Johnston’s public defiance violates federal law. “All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S., and he would see he’s breaking the law,” Homan said. “But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: if he’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”