The Venezuelan gang conquest of apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado, was no accident.
And it wasn’t just the result of President Joe Biden’s unlawful immigration policy that opened the borders to the Venezuelans and freed millions of illegal aliens into the country to begin a crime rampage.
The administration subsidized the Tren de Aragua gang with taxpayer money passed through the state capital and local refugee outfits, Christopher Rufo and Christina Buttons reported for City Journal.
Official Approval
The frightening truth is that Americans paid for it all, Rufo and Buttons reported.
“The Biden administration, in partnership with Denver authorities and publicly subsidized NGOs, provided the funding and logistics to place a large number of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora, creating a magnet for crime and gangs,” the two explained:
And, worse, some of the nonprofits involved appear to be profiting handsomely from the situation.
The story begins in 2021, when the Biden administration signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) into law, allocating $3.8 billion in federal funds to Colorado. The City of Denver, which had declared itself a “welcoming city” to migrants, drew on this reservoir of money to launch its Emergency Migrant Response resettlement program, with the goal of housing and providing services to a massive flow of migrants.
Denver, in turn, signed multimillion-dollar contracts with two local NGOs, ViVe Wellness and Papagayo, to provide housing and services to more than 8,000 predominantly Venezuelan migrants. These NGOs are run, respectively, by Yoli Casas and Marielena Suarez, who, according to professional biographies, do not appear to have previous experience in large-scale migrant resettlement.
Despite that inexperience, the two reported, the federal government showered millions on the two groups. ViVe Wellness hauled in $4.8 million, and Papagayo took in $774,000, through ARPA’s Migrant Support Grant.
Then the administration turned on the hose full blast, sending ViVe $10.4 million for three contracts and Papagayo $2.9 million for a lone contract.
Two contracts went to the Denver Asylum Seekers Program, which gave six months’ rent to 1,000 illegal aliens.
“With this funding in hand, [ViVe and Papagayo] began working with landlords to place migrants in housing units and to subsidize their rent,” Rufo and Buttons continued:
One of these organizations, Papagayo, worked with a landlord called CBZ Management, a property company that operates the three apartment buildings at the center of the current controversy: Edge of Lowry, Whispering Pines, and Fitzsimons Place, also known as Aspen Grove. …
A former CBZ Management employee, … on condition of anonymity, explained how the process worked. Last summer, the employee said, representatives from Papagayo began working with CBZ Management to place Venezuelan migrants in the company’s Aurora apartment complexes. When a Venezuelan individual or family needed housing, the NGO would contact the regional property manager, who then matched them with available apartments.
It was a booming business. According to the employee, Papagayo arranged hundreds of contracts with the property manager. The NGO provided up to two months of rental assistance, as many migrants did not have, or were unable to open, bank accounts. Within six months, according to the employee, approximately 80 percent of the residents of these buildings were Venezuelan migrants. The employee also noted that the buildings [began to see] gang activity and violence.
Those three apartment complexes, as The New American reported yesterday, are Tren de Aragua territory. But that wasn’t the worst of it, the two reporters continued. The employee revealed that Papagayo claimed the “migrants” had “stable jobs and income,” Rufo and Buttons reported. “With limited English and facing a minimum six-month wait for work permits, though, many migrants were ineligible for legal employment, struggled to find stable jobs, and ultimately fell behind on rent.”
Then came what anyone would have expected: rampant crime, including assault, extortion, drug abuse, and child molestation.
Denver authorities, apparently, don’t care, Rufo and Button continued. Spending tax money on colonizing “migrants” is the order of the day, and the city plans to carry it out. More funding for “migrants” might balloon to $340 million.
Major Trouble
Again, as The New American reported yesterday, Tren de Aragua has taken over two apartment complexes in Aurora and is at least active in a third. Four of its members, charged with attempted murder, were caught and released at the southwest border.
Myriad videos show what’s happening at the complexes.
The gang has also taken over a hotel in El Paso, Texas, a complaint filed by the city’s attorney alleges.
Cops have been called to the Gateway Hotel nearly 700 times since 2022 to handle major crimes such as arson, thefts, burglaries, and aggravated assaults, the complaint says.
Video of the mayhem shows “shows at least one gun being shot, another used to threaten, men holding knives and another man with a hatchet assaulting people and causing damage to the hotel in front of a security guard,” the complaint alleges.
And unsurprisingly, cops have fingered the gang. “Continuous incidents of criminal activity” [have] increased “with the introduction of the Tren De Aragua organization into the hotel,” the complaint alleges.
Tren de Aragua is also linked to major crimes in New York City, including an assault on two cops.
The two people responsible for Tren de Aragua and their crime wave: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
