The agents began hitting the doors minutes before six in the morning. The call was the first sound that dozens of people heard on Wednesday in a Denver Apartment Tower, Colorado. The uniformed, strongly armed, were allegedly in search of members of the Venezuelan gang of Aragua. Local media claim that the investigation was not limited to those who were suspected of having committed a crime. Apartment after apartment, immigration police officers demanded residents to show identification. The review, with just a handful of judicial orders, produced several arrests, which has made the alarms among human rights defenders jump.
Crystal Villa, a neighbor of the Cedar Run building, recorded with a camera in the bell how an agent reached his door and asked if he had drugs at home or if there was someone else there. The agent wanted to know if he spoke English and tried to enter the apartment, but had no court order. She denied her the way to the residence. “I am shocked. It’s crazy, ”said Villa, an American citizen originally from Colorado, to the newspaper The Denver Post.
The Immigration Police (ICE) revealed on Wednesday morning that a raid had been carried out. “More than 100 members of the violent Venezuelan gang Train of Aragua are sought to be arrested in Aurora,” said the organism on social networks at eight in the morning, when the operation had been two hours. Federal authorities have not announced the number of detainees.
This Thursday, however, the Donald Trump government has revealed between the lines that the operation was a fiasco. Tom Homan, the Tsar of the Border of the Republican President, has assured that there were leaks that prevented the agents from doing their job. “This is not a game. This is a very dangerous job for these agents. These interferences put our elements under a lot of risk, ”Homan told Fox News.
This same chain, who received the approval of ICE to accompany the operation, said 30 people were arrested. Only one was suspicious of belonging to the Trena de Aragua gang. Caleb Vitello, the ICE manager, admitted that the mission did not go as expected. “I think there were some leaks and they knew we were coming, but that will not stop us,” he said.
The authorities have shown their discomfort with a group of activists who appeared in the area minutes after the hundred federal agents. In the distance, the defenders reminded the residents of their rights. “Don’t talk, they can remain silent!” They said. Others made them know that they did not have to open the doors without a court order signed by a judge.
According to the Coalition of Rights of Colorado immigrants, the agents refused to show the registration orders or inform the nature of the operation. “Instead, residents indiscriminately interrogated their immigration situation, playing door to door, making the use of the force of several federal agencies to stop individuals,” says a statement. Several of the apprehended had current processes to obtain asylum. According to another activist, Kayla Frawley, the authorities destroyed a door starting the lock and even fired rubber bullets from a neighbor who ran. Organizations have summoned a march on Saturday at the repudiation of the operation.
Cedar Run apartments, with 384 units, are mostly inhabited by Latin families with young children. The company that owns the condominium indicated in a statement that receives immigrants for just over a year and a half. The local government took over several months of income for people who were accepted to a program that intended to help newcomers. Denver is one of the cities that prepared to host people expelled by the Republican states. The arrival of foreigners raised several complaints in the neighborhood, including one that said that violence had shot around.
The versions were collected by Donald Trump in the presidential campaign. The then candidate entrenched himself in the version that Venezuela was emptying his prisons and sent criminals and crazy to the United States. According to the Republican, many of these would have reached the Denver Metropolitan Zone. The bulos were fed by the media of the radical right.
Parallel operation
In another operation carried out the same morning on Wednesday, ICE agents reviewed another aurora housing complex, a city east of Denver. These had the support of uniformed from the DEA, the anti -drug agency; The FBI and the Research Group of the Department of Internal Security.
The search was made in Edge of Lowry, a building where Dea stopped an alleged member of the Aragua train on January 29. The building has been in the Trumpism’s sights since 14 people, allegedly members of the gang, were arrested in December and accused of torturing two other Venezuelan citizens. The arrest served the president and his followers to alert the “invasion” of foreign criminals in the country.
On Wednesday morning, one of the exchanges of the authorities with the neighbors during the operation was broadcast live. Through Facetime, a family showed the attempt to register a local television journalist who was outside the Edge of Lowry. “My daughter is 12 years old and is crying because she does not understand, she has never seen us in these police dilemmas,” said Jennifer Moreno, who was granted asylum on January 14. The agents left after seeing the documents of the father of the child, who said to be a legal resident.
The raids have caused several reactions. “The versions that ICE was blocking school buses that collected children and preventing parents from leaving their homes are very worrying. We do not want criminals in our streets, but making it safer our borders does not require persecuting minors and their families, who have not committed any crime, ”said Senator by Colorado John Hickenlooper.
(Tagstotranslate) Train of Aragua
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