ICE hasn’t revealed how many people were detained during raids of Denver, Aurora apartment complexes

Two days after tactical SWAT vehicles traversed Denver and Aurora and dozens of armed federal agents went door to door looking for Venezuelan gang members, federal officials have not said how many people they detained or whether they were connected to crimes. 

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency said as they raided apartment complexes Wednesday that they were targeting about 100 people who had connections to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Despite repeated requests, ICE has not released how many of the people detained had gang connections or pending criminal charges. 

The federal agency does not release the names of people who are booked into the ICE detention center in Aurora, making it difficult to verify how many of those captured this week will be charged with crimes or deported. The detention center does not release a daily population count. 

The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday that they had two of the people taken by ICE on Wednesday in their jail and were expecting more. The two people had warrants for crimes committed in Arapahoe County, but the sheriff’s department would not provide their names or other details. If they bond out of jail, county authorities would notify ICE, which could pick them up for detention, the sheriff’s office said. 

President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said the ICE operation was hampered by a leak that tipped off gang members. Fox News, which was embedded with the operation, reported that 30 people were arrested, including one gang member. Yet White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said more than 100 members of Tren de Aragua were deported from Colorado on Wednesday.

The raids were part of Trump’s “Operation Aurora,” a plan to deport gang members. Trump said during a campaign stop in Aurora that he would use the Alien Enemies Act, a law adopted in 1798 that gives the president power to deport people from countries with which the United States is at war.

Agents from ICE, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and other agencies raided apartment complexes Wednesday before dawn and continued operations into the afternoon. Residents of Cedar Run Apartments in southeastern Denver were awakened between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. when BearCat tactical vehicles and cars surrounded the complex. They used smoking flash grenades and tools to break open doors, then put an unknown number of residents on a bus with bars on the windows.

A woman whose husband and father-in-law, both from Venezuela, were taken after federal agents pushed their way through their apartment door said the agents told her the men would get to return home within about five hours if their paperwork was in order. The men did not return, Deicy Aldana said Thursday, even though they had work permits and had filed the necessary paperwork to stay in the country temporarily, she said.

Several hours after he was taken away in plastic handcuffs, Aldana’s husband messaged her to tell her that he was going to be deported and that she should sell her belongings and return to her native Colombia. He would try to meet her there, he told her. 

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat whose district includes the ICE detention center in Aurora, checks on conditions at the center about once a week, sending someone to conduct oversight visits. His office’s latest report, on Jan. 27, shows there were 1,032 detainees. Crow is asking federal law enforcement officials to gather more information about this week’s raids and who was targeted, his office said. 

“If someone, regardless of their immigration status, is committing violent crimes, they have no place in Colorado,” Crow said through an emailed statement. “But I do not support rounding up our peaceful neighbors, family members, and small business owners who live, work, and contribute to our community.”

This week’s raids followed a raid in Adams County on Jan. 26, when DEA and ICE agents stormed a private nightclub that they said was filled with members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Nearly 50 people were detained, most of them immigrants.

The Rocky Mountain field office of the DEA confirmed Thursday that it was “unable to present a drug case” because the people in the nightclub threw their “user quantity” drugs and weapons on the ground, on tables and behind couches, spokesman Steffan Tubbs said. 

Those detained still could face deportation for civil immigration charges, however.

Immigrant advocacy groups were outraged by the raids, calling them “horrifying” and inhumane.

The Colorado People’s Alliance said it received a photo from a high school student, taken from his classroom window, of a military-style ICE staging area. 

“What our community organizers witnessed yesterday at apartment complexes across Aurora and Denver was an unnecessary show of force designed to intimidate immigrant communities,” said the alliance’s executive director, Crystal Murillo. “The operations involved armored vehicles and over 100 agents from multiple federal agencies in full protective gear and wielding large rifles.”  

Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said in a news release that “while ICE is claiming these raids are targeting individuals charged with crimes, we know that they are sweeping up immigrant community members indiscriminately.” 

Shira Hereld, one of the organization’s attorneys, said she saw a young girl holding her crying baby sister after their mother, their only parent, was taken by ICE agents. Hereld also saw the neighbors band together, check in on each other and help people find housing, she said.

“These raids simultaneously expose the worst inhumanity of ICE and the most powerful humanity of our Colorado community,” Hereld said. 

The network, along with seven other nonprofits, sued the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security last week after the nonprofits received a “stop work order” of their immigration legal services programs, which receive federal funding. The order was rescinded Sunday, but it’s unclear if that action is permanent. 

Meanwhile, the advocacy group’s attorneys could not hold “know your rights” presentations or meet with groups of immigrants inside the ICE detention center for about 10 days, while the stop work order was in place, Monique Sherman, the network’s detention program managing attorney, told The Sun. 

There are now hundreds of people in the detention center who have not had access to information about their legal rights and the organization is attempting to catch up, she said. 

Sun reporter Olivia Prentzel contributed to this report.