Donald Trump holds rally in Aurora, Colorado

Aurora, Colo. — Donald Trump's rally in Aurora marks the first time ahead of the November election that either presidential campaign has visited Colorado, which typically votes Democratic statewide.

Immigration is one topic Trump will talk about at the event, which is expected to draw thousands. 

The Republican nominee has long promised to stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and has made immigration core to his political persona since the day he launched his first campaign in 2015. During the last few months, Trump has pinpointed specific smaller communities that have seen large arrivals of migrants, with tensions flaring locally over resources and some longtime residents expressing distrust about sudden demographic changes.

Aurora entered the spotlight in August when a video circulated showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan migrants. Trump has claimed extensively that Venezuelan gangs are taking over buildings, even though authorities say that was a single block of the suburb near Denver, and the area is again safe.

At the venue where he was appearing on Friday, chants of “Trump!” and guttural cries of excitement began before the sun rose and continued throughout the morning. Attendees trickled into the vast conference hall, curated specially for Trump’s visit to Aurora: On stage, posters displayed mug shots of people in prison-orange with descriptions including “Illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela.”

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also have spread falsehoods about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where Haitian immigrants were accused of stealing and eating pets.

"It’s like an invasion from within, and we’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country, and we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora,” Trump said last month in a news conference in California.

While Ohio and Colorado are not competitive in the presidential race, the Republican message on immigration is intended for states that are. Vance campaigned recently in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a city of 70,000 that has resettled refugees from Africa and Asia, and touted Trump's plan to ramp up deportations. He argues smaller communities have been “overrun” by immigrants taxing local resources.

Some of Colorado's Democratic leaders accused Trump and other Republicans of overstating problems in Aurora.

“What is occurring is minimal and isolated. And to be clear, it’s never acceptable, right? We never say any level is acceptable," said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. “But it’s not a surge. It’s not a change. There is no takeover of any part of this city, of any apartment complex. It has not happened. It is a lie.”

Trump has vowed to deport not only “criminals,” a promise he shares with Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival, but also Haitians living legally in Springfield and even people he has denigrated as “pro-Hamas radicals” protesting on college campuses. Trump has said he would revoke the temporary protected status that allows Haitians to stay in the U.S. because of widespread poverty and violence in their home nation.

Trump repeatedly faults Harris and President Joe Biden for allowing record high numbers of arrivals, saying that is fueling violent crime, though numbers show a continued downward trend after a coronavirus pandemic-era crime spike.

On the campaign trail, Trump uses specific cases of murders or attacks where suspects are immigrants who arrived in the country illegally. He has referred to them as “animals,” and earlier this week suggested that those suspected in homicide cases “have bad genes.”

Chris Haynes, an associate professor of political science at University of New Haven, who wrote a book about public opinion on immigration policies and has studied the former president’s messaging on immigration, says that is part of what he calls “episodic branding." It may prompt some moderate voters to reassess who they want to support, he said.

“What’s worked for him from the very beginning is to vilify immigrants, but also to try to make people feel like they’re a threat,” said Haynes, saying some of the rhetoric also appeals to low propensity voters that are part of his base.

Harris, for her part, was wrapping up a three-day western swing with a campaign event Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona. She also participated virtually in a White House briefing with President Biden on the recovery effort from hurricanes Milton and Helene.

“The bottom line is this: We are in this for the long haul,” said Harris as she sought to reassure those who endured losses from the hurricane that they would get help from the government.

Biden went after Trump, saying that he's “just the biggest mouth” for disinformation about the government's response to the hurricanes. The president added that the disinformation is a "permanent state of being for some extreme people," but that he believes the country as a whole wants facts and bipartisan cooperation to address natural disasters.

Just as Biden did before he abandoned his reelection bid, Democrat Harris has tacked to the right on immigration, presenting herself as a candidate who can be tough on policing the border, which is perceived as one of her biggest vulnerabilities.

“What Kamala has done with illegal migrants is the biggest crime story of our time because hundreds of thousands of people are going to be victims very shortly,” Trump said in a recent speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, before saying he would send federal law enforcement “to liberate every Pennsylvania town and every town in the United States of America that has been taken over by migrant gangs.”

Jeffrey Balogh, a resident of Erie, said at that event that he feels strongly about Trump’s proposals on immigration. He shared that he felt uncomfortable recently when he went to rent chairs from a business and five men who spoke a foreign language were standing outside waiting for a bus.

“Not one spoke a lick of English,” he said. “You see a whole different environment.”

Copyright Associated Press