Politics

Amid dangerous exaggerations about migrants, Trump says he’ll ‘rescue’ Aurora, Colorado

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Amid dangerous exaggerations about migrants, Trump says he’ll ‘rescue’ Aurora, Colorado

Donald Trump once again spread dangerously exaggerated claims about migrants having “invaded” and “conquered” Aurora, Colorado, intensifying his anti-immigration rhetoric and attacking Vice President Kamala Harris.

At a rally in Aurora on Friday, Trump repeated claims about a violent Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, “taking over” the city. The Republican presidential nominee, who has long supported capital punishmentalso called for the death penalty for migrants who kill U.S. citizens and law enforcement officers.

In a long, rambling speechTrump blamed Harris for allowing immigrants to enter from “the dungeons of the Third World, from prisons and jails, insane asylums and mental institutions” and who he claimed have preyed on “innocent Americans” across the country, including in Colorado’s third-largest city.

“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump said.

Local officials in Aurora have repeatedly pushed back on Trump’s lies. Police have said they are investigating several gang members for involvement in crimes but rebutted the claim that any gang has “taken over.” Ahead of Trump’s rally on Friday, the city released a statement saying exactly that:

A gang has not ‘taken over’ the city. The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true. It is tragic that select individuals and entities have mischaracterized our city based on some specific incidents.

With less than a month until Election DayTrump has stepped up his nativist rhetoric as part of his well-worn tactic of stoking fears about immigration, one of the biggest issues in this race. But his singling out of specific cities like Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, have had serious ramifications for the communities there.

Prior to Trump’s rally, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, said that claims about Venezuelan gang activity are “grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”

“The city and state have not been ‘taken over’ or ‘invaded’ or ‘occupied’ by migrant gangs,” Coffman said.

Aurora’s police chef, Todd Chamberlain, told NBC News that the city is “not overrun” and that it remains “a very safe city” with a “wonderful community that is incredibly diverse.”

Clarissa-Jan Lim

Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

10 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”