A special task force, comprising the Aurora Police Department, Colorado State Patrol and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, has been created to crack down on the Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua in the city.
The main goal of this task force is to help local agencies by pooling resources and sharing information to support ongoing investigations. Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said the task force has been put into practice for a while, and added that currently one of their main focuses was connecting with and learning from the community.
"We're also aggressively, you know, having presence in these pockets where there's concentrations of Venezuelan migrants, to be able to try to ourselves, or at least our law enforcement personnel at the local, state and federal levels, to identify who these bad actors are and get them off the street," Coffman said, FOX 31 reported.
The Coffman and Aurora police said they can't share too many details about what the new task force will do to avoid jeopardizing any investigations.
However, Coffman mentioned he believed it was important to dedicate more resources to this issue. He also wanted residents to know that he and the police were taking the situation seriously.
Last month, at an Axios panel during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Miami Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar said the U.S. should take a tough stance against immigrants who were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
"Those who just came in and belong to El Tren de Aragua, we should kill them," Salazar said. However, she quickly changed her tone to, "We should pull them by the hair and kick them out."
Salazar made these comments in response to a question about the Dignity Act, an immigration reform bill she sponsored to strengthen the U.S.-Mexico border and provide legal status for certain undocumented immigrants.
Democrat Lucia Báez Geller, who is running against Salazar in Florida's 27th District, said it is "appalling" to call for violence.
Geller said the U.S. needed a "fair process that supports and protects those looking for opportunity and safety" while keeping out gangs like El Tren de Aragua. She criticized Salazar for using "this opportunity to push her violent rhetoric in line with Trump and MAGA extremism."
© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
