The Gazette By Nico Brambila December 27, 2025 | updated 1 week ago
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The Trump administration’s push for a large-scale, deportation effort — built around campaign warnings about Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan prison gang that established a foothold in Colorado — collided with the realities on the ground in Denver, where raids occurred but never approached the sweeping levels of daily deportations anticipated.
President Donald Trump had talked about reaching 3,000 deportations a day, but local enforcement actions here have been smaller. They have also been shrouded in secrecy, and the opacity has been one of the defining features of 2025.
Additionally, a clearer picture of the activities of Tren de Aragua emerged. This month, federal officials announced the indictment of two suspected TdA leaders in Denver on racketeering charges tied to robbery, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and drug offenses over 14 months.
At the political front, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston appeared, alongside the mayors of Boston, Chicago and New York Mayor, in Congress to answer questions about his city’s “sanctuary” policies and response to the illegal immigration crisis, which spilled over from the southern U.S. border into America’s interior cities. The bill for Johnston’s legal defense for that March 5 hearing before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee crossed the $1 million mark this month.
Within weeks of Trump assuming office, Immigration Customs and Enforcement had partnered with the Rocky Mountain Field Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to knock down doors and round up immigrants unlawfully residing in the U.S.
These agencies widely touted their operations on social media.
Residents at one of these raids at Cedar Run Apartments in southeast Denver near Cherry Creek, disputed that federal agents had warrants targeting “wanted drug traffickers.”
The Denver Gazette sought copies of the warrants through the Freedom of Information Act. In response, ICE provided administrative warrants that in some cases were post-dated April 3 — nearly two months after the raid. An administrative warrant is an internal document that does not carry the same force of law as one signed by a judge. It authorizes agents to make an arrest, but not forced entry.
The DEA and FBI issued what’s called “Glomar” denials, rather than release the warrants tied to local operations, a position under appeal in cases involving the DEA and FBI.
Groups like the ACLU of Colorado have challenged some of the tactics in court, arguing agents have conducted warrantless apprehensions that violate constitutional protections. A federal judge has sided with the ACLU, granting a preliminary injunction.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has said ICE officials are not making “indiscriminate” stops.
“This activist ruling is a brazen effort to hamstring the Trump administration from fulfilling the President’s mandate to deport the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” McLaughlin has said.
“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically false,” McLaughlin has said, adding the ruling will “hamstring” the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, Colorado’s largest school district mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge after the administration attempted to roll back long-standing protections that limited immigration enforcement in “sensitive” locations, such as campuses.
As part of the lawsuit, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero claimed the ICE raids in February negatively affected attendance. Attendance data across district-run schools reviewed by The Denver Gazette suggested a more nuanced picture.
The administration’s immigration operations sparked a wave of “No Kings” demonstrations and mass immigration protests at the state Capitol that drew thousands of residents.
Meanwhile, the TdA gang remained at the forefront of news, with authorities indicting two men they alleged to have sanctioned the armed robberies of two jewelry stores in Denver. In the Joyeria El Ruby robbery, authorities said, gang members stole nearly $4 million in jewelry and gold and brutally beat several employees with a firearm.
The pair also directed the kidnapping of a young man at gunpoint in October last year in an attempt to extract $30,000 ransom that the family did not pay, according to authorities. TdA gang members cut off one of his fingers, the authorities said. One of the leaders is one of the FBI’s top 10 most wanted, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction.
Two suspected Tren de Aragua leaders indicted in Denver
The Gazette By Nico Brambila December 18, 2025 | updated 2 weeks ago
Denver and federal officials announced the indictment of two suspected Tren de Aragua (TdA) leaders in Denver on Thursday for racketeering that includhttps://www.denvergazette.com/2025/12/18/two-suspected-tren-de-aragua-leaders-indicted-in-denver/ed robbery, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and controlled substance abuse over a 14-month period in 2024.
Indicted were Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano and Brawins Dominique Suarez Villegas, aka “Chino San Vicente.”
Gang members have been linked to a myriad of criminal activities that include human trafficking — specifically immigrant women and girls — drug trafficking, kidnapping, and money laundering.
According to U.S. authorities, members of the Venezuelan prison gang hid in plain sight by infiltrating immigrants headed north. But the gang’s brutal reputation — magnified by reports the gang had “taken over” apartment complexes in Aurora — quickly made TdA a political flashpoint.
President Donald Trump seized on that fear on the campaign trail, citing the gang as evidence of unchecked immigration and using it to bolster calls for stricter border enforcement.
“They’re a savage gang, one of the worst in the world and they’re getting bigger all the time because of our stupidity,” Trump has said.
Law enforcement sources earlier this year said fewer than two dozen TdA affiliates have been arrested in the Denver metro area, a figure that falls far short of the sweeping purge the president promised on a campaign stop in Aurora last fall.
The low arrest figures in the Denver metro area may mask a more complex reality, one in which identifying and apprehending TdA gang members requires time, intelligence and luck.
“Gang members and real criminals aren’t the easiest to catch,” John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field office director, has said.
No one knows with certainty how many TdA gang members are in the United States, illustrating the difficulty law enforcement has had in tracking the gang’s operations.
Last year, the FBI reported roughly 400 TdA members in New York alone, according to an internal Oct. 5, 2023 Aurora police bulletin.
Ronna Rísquez — an investigative journalist and author of “El Tren de Aragua: La banda que revolucionó el crimen organizado en América Latina” — estimates the gang has about 5,000 members.