What’s New
A police chief in Colorado said his city and others like it were picking up the pieces of President Joe Biden‘s border policies, as he announced the arrest of 14 suspected migrant gang members Tuesday.
The group was arrested after two people were effectively tortured in an apartment building in the city of Aurora—one of the focal points of the immigration discussion during the presidential election campaign.
“They were pistol-whipped, they were beat, they were mistreated,” Chief Todd Chamberlain said at a press conference Tuesday. “So does that fall in the category of torture for me? Yeah, it does.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for comment Tuesday evening via email.
Why It Matters
The arrests come after the Colorado city was thrust into the national spotlight in September, following a viral video allegedly showing Venezuelan migrants armed in an apartment building. President-elect Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party said Aurora had been taken over by migrants, which local leaders denied.
What To Know
Chief Chamberlain said his officers were called to The Edge at Lowry Apartments Monday night after two residents were taken by a group to a different apartment, where they were “terrorized” as their home was burgled.
Both the victims, who are thought by law enforcement to be immigrants, were bound, and one was stabbed. They were only released once they promised not to go to the police, but they told officers anyway.
The building was one of a handful highlighted by the GOP in September as having been taken over by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. While local leaders insisted to Newsweek that the gang’s presence was restricted to these apartment buildings, there were claims the city itself was struggling to cope with migrant numbers.
“As the nation knows, this complex is an incredibly problematic complex,” the chief said Tuesday.
Chamberlain said he suspected the group were members of TdA and that his team was working with federal immigration enforcement agencies to identify them. Monday’s arrests followed several others in recent months.
The chief said he had spoken to a person at the White House in September, who told him that once a person crosses the border “that’s all we really care about”, which he said was a problem.
What People Are Saying
Chief Chamberlain said at Tuesday’s press conference: “We have individuals who come to our country, they get dropped off into a community, they have absolutely no infrastructure, they have absolutely no support, they have absolutely no guidance from the federal government on what to do, how to live, how to survive. This is the ramifications of that activity.
“This is the ramifications of not monitoring what’s occurring, how it’s occurring and who it’s occurring to. So now in Aurora, we are now in the process, as are many other cities across this nation, of picking up the pieces of a very bad system that was in place.”
Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Tom Homan should set up a command center in Aurora, CO. Ground Zero for his first massive initiative. We want perp walks of all of these evil gang members torturing and extorting American citizens. Go street by street, apartment complex by apartment complex.”
What’s Next
The chief said his department’s work would continue to bring those responsible for Monday’s incident to justice. Work was ongoing to determine the identities of those arrested, with Chamberlain saying evidence suggested they were TdA members.
The post Biden Border Policies Blasted as Suspected Gang Members Arrested in Aurora appeared first on Newsweek.
