If Donald Trump is telling the truth — never the way to bet, of course — he’ll be in Aurora Friday for a campaign stop.
Why do you think he’s taking time away from campaigning in the few swing states that will determine the presidential election to come to Colorado, an uncompetitive state where polls show him losing to Kamala Harris by as many as 15 points?
OK, that’s not a serious question. We know why.
Demonizing migrants has always been central to Trump’s campaign messaging, and this time around, Trump has come up with new and startlingly inventive lies about migrants. And so, he has made Aurora into Ground Zero for spreading fear about migrant communities — you know, the ones “poisoning our blood” —in America.
OK, pet-chomping Springfield, Ohio, is actually Trump’s Ground Zero. But Aurora, where Trump says Venezuelan street gangs are using “guns that are beyond even military scope” to take over apartment buildings, is Ground Zero.1.
Yes, beyond even military scope, whatever that means. I just hope the Pentagon is paying attention.
Obviously, Trump wants to use Aurora, which he characterizes as a “war zone,” as a convenient backdrop for his latest round of fearmongering and to double down on his plan to deport every last unauthorized migrant, which number about 11 million, although he prefers to use 18 million or sometimes 25 million, presumably because the bigger the lie, the more they believe.
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It’s not The Big Lie, which is, of course, about the so-called rigged 2020 election. But the lies on immigration are big enough and just as dangerous.
I’d like you to try to imagine what such a deportation plan would look like. Actually, I wouldn’t like you to imagine it, and we can only hope that it’s just another Trump lie, but we must imagine it. Not only is Trump campaigning on it, but, according to one recent poll, 54% of Americans say they strongly or somewhat agree with the idea.
The politics on this are so hot that, sadly, even Kamala Harris is going hawkish on immigration. She’s not talking mass deportation, but would she really spend needed money to add to the unneeded border wall?
Most experts say Trump’s deportation plan — which his aides readily admit would involve giant internment camps and maybe the military — isn’t feasible. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and probably wreck the U.S. economy, not to mention the lives of millions of mixed families. According to the Pew Research Center, 70% of unauthorized immigrants live in households containing lawful immigrants or U.S. citizens.
And yet, if you go to a Trump rally, you’ll hear that deporting migrants — he admits, proudly I think, that his mass deportation plan would be “bloody” — would solve every problem we face.
Trump has made similar promises before. He promised to deport everybody when he ran in 2016 and ended up deporting fewer immigrants than Barack Obama.
I called Chloe East, a University of Colorado Denver economics professor who specializes in migrant issues, to discuss just what Trump’s deportation plan would mean.
Like most experts, East doesn’t think such a plan would be feasible. Or at least she hopes not. She notes that under George W. Bush and Obama, there was a deportation plan called Secure Communities.
“That policy,” East said, “was able to deport about 400,000 people over six years. That was a pretty comprehensive plan. But it didn’t come anywhere near the scope that Trump is proposing.”
The truth, East says, is that despite what you may hear, deporting even as many as a million people a year — that’s the number Trump running mate JD Vance likes to use — would cause massive upheaval in the economy, would actually mean fewer jobs, would do nothing to help fight crime and would, in fact, exacerbate the housing shortage. And she’s got the data to prove it.
So, what Trump has left is lies. Many, many lies.
Of late, Trump has told the bizarre lie that Harris has stolen FEMA disaster fund money intended for Hurricane Helene victims. There’s the bogus story of the government phone app, which, according to Vance, asylum seekers can use to be approved with “the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.”
He lies about migrants and supposedly rising crime rates — “You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped,” Trump said recently in Michigan — when crime rates are actually falling.
Last I heard Trump talking about Aurora, he was blaming Kamala Harris for allowing millions of unauthorized migrants to cross the border.
“The 21 million illegals she let in are now creating havoc throughout the country. Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, are just two examples,” Trump said. “What they’re going through in those places, it’s unbelievable.”
In Aurora, he said last week, “they are actually going in with massive machine gun-type equipment. They are going in with guns that are beyond even military scope, and they are taking over apartment buildings. They’re taking over real estate. They’re in the real estate development business. Congratulations. These are in that case people from Venezuela, young street-gang members that were sent here by the government of Venezuela.”
So, yes, as Trump sees it, random Venezuelan government officials have sent street gangs directly to Colorado, and the gangs — bringing their beyond-military-scope guns with them or possibly buying them after they got to town — apparently liked the real estate vibe in Aurora.
Meanwhile, the actual Aurora story involves a slumlord and a viral photo of gun-toting gang members and the fact that it can be of mass political benefit to demonize migrants, which is a story as old as the country.
It obviously doesn’t matter whether the Aurora story has been largely debunked. It’s of use, just as the barbecuing dogs and cats is of use.
As I wrote the other day, I hope everyone listens in as Trump rants and, more than likely, raves. I hope everyone pays attention to the lies.
I know those at the rally will actually be cheering him on, just as they do at every Trump rally. But I hold on to the hope that those who know Aurora hasn’t been taken over by violent migrant gangs and know a lie when they hear one will also know and recognize the source of the real poison infecting America.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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