Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua’s infestation of the Denver suburbs that came to represent the flimsy security at the southern border was made possible by city leaders who hired nonprofits to move migrants outside of Colorado’s capital, according to the mayor of a nearby bedroom community.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, called out Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, this week for terrorizing his suburb with the violent prison gang by slipping language into nonprofit contracts letting Denver resettle droves of migrants beyond city limits.
The result, Mr. Coffman said, was an unknown number of Venezuelans moving into Aurora apartment complexes. It set the stage for last summer’s caught-on-camera moment where heavily armed Tren de Aragua members were observed seizing buildings for their budding criminal enterprise in America.
“Aurora has suffered from a national embarrassment that has harmed the image of our city in a way that could have lasting economic consequences,” Mr. Coffman wrote in an op-ed for The Denver Gazette. “As the mayor of Aurora, I’m asking that Mayor Mike Johnston be transparent and tell the truth about what he did.”
The suburb just east of Denver became a focal point for President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail last fall after said he was going to “liberate Aurora” from the South American gang known for brutal killings, human trafficking and theft rings.
Mr. Coffman, who rebuked the incoming president’s framing of Tren de Aragua’s presence in the city, has come to direct his ire at Denver’s mayor after launching his own investigation into how the migrants have been handled.
Mr. Coffman said a records request revealed Mr. Johnston tasked two nongovernmental organizations, ViVe Wellness and Papagayo, to put the newly arriving migrants “in Denver or in the surrounding communities.”
Papagayo had a contract with CBZ Management, the property company whose three apartment buildings went viral when surveillance footage showed hordes of Tren de Aragua members going door-to-door in a hostile takeover.
The Aurora mayor said Mr. Johnston confirmed Denver had contracts with nonprofits placing illegal immigrants in the suburb, but refused to share how many migrants the organizations assisted and where they were being sent.
Mr. Johnston told local CBS affiliate KCNC-TV the city hired two nonprofits to help them relocate migrants after more than 40,000 were bused into Denver from Texas since late 2022.
“We give them dollars and they decide on housing,” Mr. Johnston told the station. “Every day it’s looking for where that housing is and identifying what open unit it is. You might go to Thornton, you might go to Northglenn, you might go to Denver.”
Mr. Coffman said he privately asked Mr. Johnston in September how Denver avoided issues with Tren de Aragua, despite being the central landing spot for migrants in the metropolitan area.
Mr. Johnston, who the Aurora mayor said “talks incessantly in political soundbites,” said nothing in response.
Mr. Coffman said in the op-ed he’s still pushing Denver’s city attorney to send over a list of migrants who have been moved to Aurora.
The Aurora mayor said Venezuelans are of particular concern because the country is a failed socialist dictatorship where locals turn to criminal gangs and criminal behavior to survive.
“Unfortunately, where there is a concentration of Venezuelans here, the criminal element sometimes follows and superimposes itself on the Venezuelans to exploit them,” Mr. Coffman wrote. “I believe that such was the case with CBZ properties, particularly at the Edge of Lowry apartments, in Aurora.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.