Colorado city overrun by Venezuelan gangs considers turning elementary school into migrant shelter

An elementary school in Colorado could be turned into a shelter for migrants as they continue to flood across the country’s southern border.

The building which is currently standing empty in Denver has been floated as an option and is being considered by the city’s Democratic Mayor.

The specific school property involved, which is owned by Denver Public Schools, has not been made public, but city officials say they are making contingency plans to turn it into emergency accommodation.

The building has been ‘identified as a potential migrant shelter, but nothing is final and there’s no paperwork,’ a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said.

Johnston explained how the city has been ‘looking for buildings that would be suited as an emergency shelter. [But that] no determination has been made yet.’ 

The building which is currently standing empty in Denver is currently an option and is being considered by the city’s Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston, pictured above

Denver, a city of more than 700,000 residents is also a ‘sanctuary city’ meaning it does not enforce federal immigration law. 

‘The location you reference has been looked at as a possible site to provide temporary shelter for newcomers,’ Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for the Denver mayor’s office said to Fox News. ‘No decisions have been made, nor contracts signed.

‘It’s also probably worth pointing out that very few newcomers are in shelter at this time. In all of August, we saw around 150 people come through our shelter system, many of whom stayed for only a matter of hours before departing for other locations.’

The city also refuses to offer cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents – but there are fears parts of Denver have recently become overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Last month a video was released shot in the Denver suburb of Aurora showing armed men knocking on an apartment door, intensifying fears the Tren de Aragua gang was in control of the six-building complex. 

On Thursday, police in Aurora said the street gang had a small presence in the city and had not taken over the rundown apartment complex.

Footage from a resident in an Aurora apartment complex appeared to show armed men knocking on a door, intensifying fears the Tren de Aragua gang was in control of the complex 

Nevertheless, the allegations continues to gain steam among conservatives and was amplified by former President Donald Trump in a Wednesday Fox News town hall where he said Venezuelans were ‘taking over the whole town.’

Aurora is a diverse city that has long grappled with crime and gangs, and police said they have so far linked 10 people to Tren de Aragua and arrested six of them, including the suspects in a July attempted homicide.

But in a visit to the apartments where the armed men were filmed, interim Aurora police chief Heather Morris said gang members had not taken over and weren’t collecting rent. 

The remarks came after Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said that ‘criminal elements’ had taken over some unspecified buildings and were extorting residents.

After residents held a news conference to speak out against the gang claims, Coffman, a Republican and former congressman, conceded he was ‘not sure where the truth is in all of this.’ 

Aurora police are seen at the complex. They say that claims that the building has being taken by a gang are false

In a video, other members of the gang rush up the stairwell, bearing weapons. In the background, the men can be heard speaking in Spanish to one another

A boy guides his bicycle past apartment buildings as a rally is held in the courtyard to address chronic problems in the apartment buildings occupied by people displaced from their home countries in central and South America in Aurora

In an interview this week with Denver7 TV station, Coffman said the narrative that all of Aurora was unsafe was not true and harmful to the economic health of the rapidly growing city of more than 400,000 people.

Trump has sought to capitalize on concerns over immigration as he seeks a second term in November. 

At Wednesday night’s town hall, he repeated his call for mass deportations after overstating the gang situation in Aurora.

‘Take a look at Aurora in Colorado, where Venezuelans are taking over the whole town, they´re taking over buildings, the whole town,’ Trump said. ‘You saw it the other day they´re knocking down doors and occupying apartments of people.’

The video helping fuel the allegations showed armed men, including one holding a long gun, climbing up the stairs and knocking on an apartment door. 

The former residents who filmed it told KDVR-TV it was taken before a shooting at the complex on August 18 in which a 25-year-old man later died. 

Venezuela’s most violent gang Tren de Aragua has moved its headquarters to just across the US border in the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez

Among the nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants who entered the U.S. in recent years were suspected gang members tied to police shootings, human trafficking and other crimes – yet there’s no evidence that the gang has set up an organizational structure in the U.S., Jeremy McDermott, the Colombia-based co-director of InSight Crime,  told the Associated Press this summer.

He published a recent report on Tren de Aragua’s expansion.

Social media posts about a video purporting to show migrants taking over a school bus in San Diego and a 911 call reporting Venezuelan migrants taking over an apartment building in Chicago have also received attention lately. Both were unsubstantiated.

Many of the immigrants from Venezuela and other Latin American countries who live in the Aurora complex say there are no gangs there, and they are being unfairly painted as criminals.