Aurora leaders clash as questions over deportation plan persist

Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky says the Trump transition team has spoken to her about Operation Aurora, but the details of President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport an unknown number of undocumented immigrants remain scarce.

Last week, Jurinsky took the opportunity of a monthly meeting of the council’s public safety policy committee, which she chairs, to remind city leaders that “Operation Aurora is coming.”

“This is the real thing,” she said. “On a very serious note, there seems to be a disconnect between the incoming administration and the City of Aurora, so I hope that we are taking this seriously. This is coming.”

Trump announced the proposed mass deportation effort when he visited Colorado’s most diverse city while on the campaign trail in October. Before a crowd of thousands, Jurinsky promoted claims of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua running rampant in the city and commandeering an apartment complex whose managers had long faced allegations of neglect.

Jurinsky said Friday that she has spoken with Trump and campaign staffers about the president-elect’s plan, which she said will focus on undocumented immigrants with gang ties and those who have committed crimes in the United States.

Beyond that, she and others said it’s unclear how the federal government would enact deportations.

“As far as what Operation Aurora really means or what’s going to happen, I don’t have a really clear picture,” she said. “Something’s got to happen.”

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team, said the president-elect would “marshal every federal and state power necessary” to start deporting criminals, without offering additional specifics.

During the Nov. 14 committee meeting, Aurora city attorney Pete Schulte asked that communications from the Trump administration about Operation Aurora be forwarded to his office. As of Friday, he said it had not been contacted about the plan.

“We’re going to make sure the laws are followed. It’s not the city’s place to participate,” he said. “Just from a legal perspective, I don’t expect a mass deportation to occur here in Aurora or anywhere else.”

Jurinsky said she was hopeful that police would help deport criminals by sharing information with federal immigration authorities.

However, city spokesman Matthew Brown wrote in an email that state law limits what information local law enforcement can share with federal agencies because immigration is regulated by the federal government.

“The city and Aurora Police Department focus on enforcing state and local law. As we always have, we will work with our federal partners and follow federal law and directives as they apply to our community,” Brown said.

“We do not have anything specific to review or respond to at this time, and it would be inappropriate for us to speculate on next steps.”

Aurora Police Sgt. Marc Sears — the president of one of Aurora’s two police unions, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 49 — also pointed out that department directives prohibit police officers from asking members of the public for documents “for the sole purpose of determining someone’s immigration status.”

Jurinsky mentioned Sears as a candidate to oversee the cooperation between Aurora police and immigration authorities during Operation Aurora. Sears said Friday that Jurinsky hadn’t mentioned the matter to him beforehand, and the announcement came as a surprise.

He also expressed frustration about Jurinsky’s claims that police had turned a blind eye to crime in some corners of the city as well as recent social media posts where she challenged the Aurora Police Department’s efforts to crack down on gangs.

Jurinsky said Friday that it’s not true that there is “nothing to see” about Venezuelan gang activity in Aurora, despite what the Aurora Police Department has said.