The Patriot Post® · The First American 'No-Go Zone'

We’ve known for years that several European nations have what are called “no-go zones.” These areas are magnets for immigrants, illegal or otherwise, whose refusal to assimilate and follow their host nation’s laws have made enforcement difficult, if not impossible. The interesting part about our 2018 article was its premise that Donald Trump was right: Nations allowing mass migration were having issues with crime.

Fast-forward a half-dozen years and a change of administration later, and you’ll find that — despite the ignorance of most local and national media and law enforcement — America has at least one of these types of “no-go zones” hundreds of miles inland from the border, in the town of Aurora, Colorado.

The backstory is relatively simple: Denver has become a sanctuary city and the leading adopter of immigrants per capita, with over 40,000 housed in a city of 710,000. However, Denver is not the entirety of its metro area, and the “no-go zone” in question is actually housed in its easterly suburb of Aurora, a large metro area itself, boasting a population close to 400,000.

In Aurora, described by the New York Post as “a quiet bedroom community,” three separate apartment complexes have reportedly been taken over by the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. The problem came to light when Aurora shut down one of the three complexes as being “unfit for human habitation.” The management company contended it could not address the issues, as its on-site property manager had gone into hiding for fear of his life.

“It’s been a nightmare and I can’t wait to get out of here,” said former resident Cindy Romero, who showed a local television station the top-to-bottom locks she and her husband installed on their door for fear of getting it kicked in. She’s one of those who have been displaced by the gang, and she and her husband were finally intimidated into leaving the complex. Her apartment was immediately taken over by a migrant family, with Tren de Aragua collecting the rent.

“We’re a victim of a failed policy at the southern border,” said Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman. “What I believe occurred was that federal agencies worked with some of our local nonprofits and put them there.”

The alleged ringleader of the gang, Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirino, has been arrested and deported at least twice since 2022. It’s a history that tracks well with that of Jose Antonio Ibarra, the accused murderer of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, and could eventually be true with hundreds of gang members now scattered around the nation.

One issue that the local authorities in Aurora have is a state law prohibiting municipalities from communicating directly with federal immigration enforcement. “Our local law enforcement would like the ability to communicate with local immigration officials,” said Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon. “We have been apprised that there has absolutely been an increase in property crimes, assault, and trafficking, and it’s specific issues with the cartels coming out of Venezuela.”

Yet, while Aurora is an example, it’s but a symptom of policies that have encouraged illegal immigrants from all over the world to set up shop in American cities, large and small. They’ve been encouraged by lax border security, weak asylum laws, and the promise of benefits — all policies put in place by the Biden/Harris administration, all policies on which “border czar” Kamala Harris has flip-flopped during the course of her media-dodging campaign. As Not the Bee curtly put it, “You didn’t think that letting in 10+ million military-aged men, many of them who were criminals in their own nations, would lead to this?”

All these issues in Aurora — as well as hundreds of murders, rapes, robberies, and drunk driving tragedies elsewhere — would not have happened if it weren’t for the open-door immigration policy established by the Harris/Biden administration. If Americans want to get a handle on the problem, they’ll need to choose wisely come November.