Moments after being sworn in Monday, President Donald Trump said he would declare an emergency at the southern border, the start of what he promised to be a crack down on the illegal immigration a crisis that has spilled over into Denver and America’s other interior cities.

The cartels will be regarded as “terrorist organizations,” he added during his inauguration speech.

Trump also vowed to stop all illegal crossings.

“And we will begin the process of (sending) criminal aliens back to the places where (they came from),” Trump said.

He intends to sign a flurry of executive orders that would, among other things, put back in place his “Remain in Mexico” policy from his first presidency, he said. Adopted in 2019, the program sent back some 70,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers across the border, where they would wait for their immigration court appointments. Then-President Joe Biden immediately suspended the program.  

“I will end the practice of catch and release,” Trump said, adding he would be deploying troops to the southern border to “repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

“Under the orders I’ll signed today, we will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” he said, adding that, under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, he will crack down on foreign criminal gangs.

The latter of which, he said, has devastated American cities.

Trump raised the issue of illegal immigration and criminal organizations on the campaign trail after the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, of TdA, took control of multiple apartment complexes in Aurora. In an Aurora campaign stop in October, Trump vowed to conduct a mass deportation campaign beginning in Colorado’s third-largest city.

The Denver metro area has been in the throes of a crisis that began two years ago, when about 90 immigrants — mostly from South and Central America — were dropped off downtown and left to wander in the cold.

Since then, nearly 43,000 immigrants, many of whom crossed the border illegally, have arrived in Denver.

Early in the crisis, Denver officials decided to assume the responsibility to respond to the influx. To date, those costs have commutatively reached more than $80 million. While Denver has received state and federal reimbursements, the majority of those costs have been borne by Denver taxpayers.

Plane, train and bus tickets purchased by the city for immigrants suggest about half have stayed in the Denver metro region. That translates to roughly 21,500 people, or a city about the size of Golden.

TdA, a transnational gang, sought to entrench its tentacles in metro Denver. Federal authorities have said gang members wanted to make Denver their headquarters.

The gang has a diverse criminal portfolio that includes drug and human trafficking — particularly immigrant women and girls — kidnapping, extortion and money laundering.

Aurora police recently arrested several gang members they believe were involved in the kidnapping and torture of a Venezuelan couple on the property.

To help combat the problem, city officials — who initially denied that TdA had taken over three apartment complexes and terrorized residents — have adopted a strategy of boarding up properties under the gang’s control.

David Pyrooz, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and gang expert, has called the city’s strategy “very rare.”

In August, city officials shut down up Aspen Grove — a 99-unit apartment complex owned by CBZ Management — citing a litany of health and safety violations that included rodent infestations, sewage backups and trash pileups.

Emails obtained by The Denver Gazette, however, revealed officials with CBZ Management believed its closure was necessary to thwart the Venezuelan gang.

Its closure left about 300 residents homeless.

Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky has said she believes closing Aspen Grove only pushed gang members to another property plagued with health and safety issues.

“The city shut them down and pushed them further into other properties,” Jurinsky, chair of Aurora’s public safety committee, has said.

Earlier this month, an Aurora judge approved the city’s request for an emergency order to shut down The Edge of Lowry, a second troubled complex associated with CBZ Management.

In an affidavit for the court request, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said the unmitigated violence at The Edge had “reached a breaking point.”

“Without intervention, I believe the criminal behavior will flourish, making living conditions untenable for any law-abiding residents in this neighborhood,” Chamberlain said in court documents.

Housing advocates and residents have blamed the rapidly deteriorating conditions at the properties on out-of-state “slumlord.” Aurora officials have said The Edge’s closure would likely be finalized by mid-February.

Built in the 1970s, the Edge at Lowry has 74 units. CBZ Management owns 11 properties in Colorado, including the three troubled apartment complexes in Aurora.