Among the 10,000 who attended the Trump rally in Aurora, Colorado, last week was Willy Bastidas, a 30-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker who came to the event as a witness to hateful falsehoods.
“It’s very easy for people to tell lies and talk about what they know nothing about,” Bastidas later told the Daily Beast through an interpreter.
In this particular instance, Donald Trump had seized upon a video showing a handful of armed young men described as members of a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua in an apartment complex that had fallen into disrepair. The management firm—described by Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman as “slumlords” from Brooklyn—had been resisting pressure to address numerous housing code violations by saying the gang had invaded their buildings, terrorizing the managers and making repairs impossible. Coffman noted that the firm’s maintenance failings long predated the arrival of a handful of gang members
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“It’s a little late to play the Venezuelan gang card,” the mayor was quoted saying.
The gang members who did frequent the properties and apparently assault a building manager and commit other acts of violence seemed to simply provide more proof of the broken windows theory. That long-held hypothesis posits that broken windows—of which the Aurora properties had many—and other unaddressed signs of physical disorder lead to rising crime. The police responded by arresting a dozen alleged gang members among the 40,000 Venezuelans who have settled in Aurora and the rest of the Denver metropolitan area.
As of last week, a spokesman for the Aurora Police Department said he was not aware of any new gang arrests since the first handful. But that had not stopped Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance from declaring that Aurora had been taken over by an invading horde of savage animals.
“You may never see me again but that’s OK. I’ve gotta do what I gotta do,” Trump said when announcing in September that he would be visiting Aurora along with Springfield, Ohio, where he and Vance had falsely said that Haitian immigrants were eating pet dogs and cats.
Bastidas had chosen to come to Aurora after being granted asylum at the U.S. border in 2022 because he heard it had a Spanish-speaking community that would welcome him.
“I came here without family. I came here without knowing anyone,” he told the Daily Beast.
He discovered that Aurora lived up to its reputation.
“A warm embrace, an open embrace,” he said. “That was the start of a better life.”
And he decided it was where he wanted to stay and make a life as a mechanic.
“I know with 100 percent certainty that there isn’t another,” he said. “I feel like this is my home, this is my family. Not people that are necessarily family by blood, but beautiful people I have a lot of care for.”
But in recent weeks, Bastidas heard that Trump was describing Aurora as a “hellhole” and a “warzone.” Trump ignored pleas from Aurora officials to cease exaggerating the crime problem and demonizing the great majority of Venezuelan migrants there.
On learning that Trump would be holding a rally at the Gaylord Rockies resort and convention center in Aurora on Oct. 11, Bastidas decided to attend. He brought along a translator so he could understand what Trump had to say. He also hoped to enlighten whoever might be willing to listen.
As with all Trump rallies now, there was screening at the entrance.
“Security in the event was very strong,” Bastidas recalled. “There were a lot of police around. And it took a long time to get through.”
But nobody took particular notice of what appeared to be a paper booklet he carried. He had it with him as Trump took the stage between two enlarged photos of the apprehended gang members.
He proclaimed that if he were elected again, he would immediately order the deportation of migrants, nationwide. He said he would call it “Operation Aurora” and he proceeded to explain why.
“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” Trump said. “And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here.”
Bastidas noted that one of the TV cameras was panning the crowd.
“It only showed people who were supporting Trump,” he said. “A perfect image.”
He decided that the time had come to introduce some truth. He began to unfold what had appeared to be a booklet.
“I was afraid,” he recalled. “You have people who are fanatics. “
The booklet proved to be a poster with a message written in English.
“WE ARE MIGRANTS
WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS
WHY DOES TRUMP HATE US?”
Plainclothes security rushed over immediately, gesturing for him to exit.
“They took the sign,” he said. “They threw it in the trash.”
He remained apprehensive as he obeyed an order to leave immediately
“I didn’t know if they were allowed to attack me or not,” he said.
He noted that several other people had raised signs only for them to be confiscated.
“All these people who are trying to make a statement about what is wrong, they end up being thrown out,” he later said.
This week, as Trump continued to invoke the specter of savage migrants to literally scare up votes, Bastidas spoke of the upcoming election in which he has no vote but much at stake.
“It must be said that if [the voters] make a badly wrong choice, that monster will be making decisions as he sees fit since he violates and mocks the laws and uses his command at his convenience since he is a racist,” Bastidas told the Daily Beast.
Of his firsthand observation of Trump supporters at the rally, he recalled, “They don’t even know the show they have in front of them.”
He described the Trump followers as “people who don’t have a clear idea of what they are doing.”
He spoke of democracy, which was smashed by dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and is now endangered by Trump in America.
“Democracy is the right of every person to give their opinion and choose what would be best for the country and if you allow them to steal your right, your voice would be worthless,” he said.
Bastidas reported that by his experience, a dictator is only interested in control and filling his pockets.
“My hope for the future is to continue fighting against all dictators and advance as a human being and lead a life towards a positive purpose,” he said.
And there is no place he would rather live out his new life than in Aurora.
