Former President Donald Trump announced plans to visit Aurora on Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. Here’s what you need to know:

Where is Donald Trump’s rally taking place in Aurora?

Former President Donald Trump plans to hold a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, located at 6700 N Gaylord Rockies Boulevard in Aurora, near Denver International Airport. 

What is the schedule for Donald Trump’s rally?

Trump is scheduled to deliver his remarks at 1 p.m., though the former president may start speaking later. No other schedule details were provided. 

How will Donald Trump’s visit to Colorado impact traffic?

The route former President Donald Trump will take to the event will likely not be disclosed in consideration of his personal safety. Expect traffic delays and possible road closures in the areas surrounding the Gaylord Rockies Resort around the time the former president is scheduled to arrive, speak and depart. 

How will Donald Trump’s visit to Colorado impact air travel out of Denver International Airport?

It is unknown how former President Trump’s visit will affect air travel, if at all. A spokesperson for Denver International Airport on Tuesday told The Denver Gazette that authorities are unable to provide any information about the former president’s visit. The travel plans, including the location where the Trump campaign will land in Colorado, will likely not be shared with the public in consideration of the former president’s personal safety. 

How can the public get tickets to Donald Trump’s rally at the Gaylord Rockies hotel?

The public can get tickets on the Donald Trump campaign website linked here. A person may register only up to two tickets per mobile number. It’s a first come, first served basis.

Will Donald Trump visit the apartment complexes impacted by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua?

The Trump campaign has not released any details about whether he will take side trips while in Colorado.  

What do the polls say about Donald Trump’s chances of winning Colorado?

Trump lost Colorado in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden by 13.5 percentage points. He currently trails Democratic challenger Kamala Harris by double digits in the latest polling. A Republican has not won Colorado since 2004, when the state went for President George W. Bush. 

What happened at the Aurora apartment complexes?

Last August, 300 people were evicted from the Aspen Grove apartments in Aurora in an urgent dispossession that officials claimed was for the safety of the residents. Mountains of trash had overflowed into the parking lot, which brought rodents. Residents also complained of heat issues, water leaks, broken windows and burned-out kitchens.  

The city boarded up and fenced off the complex.  

Initially, local officials dismissed the assertion by the property management company that the presence of gang members precluded it from doing its work at Aspen Grove and that it feared for the safety of its staffers and residents. The city called it an “alternative narrative” to the numerous code violations and the poor condition of the building.  

Officials began walking back their statements after the video of armed men barging into apartment units surfaced and a cache of letters from a law firm representing CBZ Management — written a month before the federal government acknowledged Tren de Aragua had extended its tentacles into Denver — became public.  

More recently, a national law firm that investigated the claims said that, through violence and intimidation, the gang took over Whispering Pines — another complex owned by CBZ Management — and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord, according to a law firm’s investigation.  

Aurora officials also acknowledged that authorities had arrested people suspected — though not yet confirmed at the time of their apprehensions — of being members of the Venezuelan gang long before the media spotlight on the city. The gang’s activities also “significantly affected” apartment complexes in the city, officials said.  

Who or what is Tren de Aragua or TDA?

Tren de Aragua, a violent gang that originated in the prisons of Venezuela, has expanded its reach far beyond the South American country and established a foothold in the Denver metro area, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is linked to a range of crimes, which includes drug trafficking, illegal mining, extortion, migrant smuggling, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, kidnapping, and several others. The gang is also known for recording its crimes to intimidate rival gangs.  

Described by the U.S. government as Venezuela’s “most powerful criminal gang,” authorities said it operates sex trafficking networks and exploits Venezuelan migrants. Back in April, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol warned Americans to “watch out for this gang. It is the most powerful in Venezuela, known for murder, drug trafficking, sex crimes, extortion, & other violent acts.”

The gang is making headlines in Colorado after its members have been accused of a jewelry heist, a beating, shootings, and barging into apartment units with rifles.   

What did Trump say about Aurora?

The gang situation in Aurora took center stage during the first presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris last September.   

“You see what’s happening with towns throughout the United States,” Trump said. “You look at Springfield in Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They are taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden let into our country.”  

Trump added, “They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality, and we have to get them out.” 

After the debate, Trump vowed at a campaign event that he would start the “largest deportation” of undocumented immigrants in the country’s history in Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, where Trump asserted that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets.  

“In the next two weeks I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump said on Sept. 18 at a rally on Long Island in New York.  

What did Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman say in response to Trump’s planned visit? 

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman, said that he welcomes the chance to clear up Trump’s misconceptions about the city.  

“I’m very excited that the former president wants to visit our city to see for himself that the narrative that we are being overrun by TdA gang members is false and for our police chief to have the opportunity to brief the former president on our successful efforts to identify and arrest TdA gang members,” Coffman said.  

What are local officials saying about Venezuelan gangs in Colorado?

Officials, including Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, have acknowledged the gang’s presence in the Denver metro region but have pushed back on portrayals that the city was overrun by the gang.   

“The misrepresentation that all of Aurora has this problem is simply not true and it give this city a black eye unjustifiably,” Coffman said.   

“Thank you to the city of Aurora for setting the record straight,” U.S. Rep. Jason Crow said on X. “There is no gang take over in any part of Aurora.”