A deep red town that’s a stone’s throw from migrant haven Denver is anxiously awaiting Donald Trump’s inauguration – and the sweeping deportations that he’s promised.
The residents of sleepy Castle Rock and other nearby parts of Colorado have had enough of the crime wave rattling Denver, that many blame on gun-toting Venezuelan gangsters taking control of whole apartment blocks.
Now, they’re taking action, by pledging to support president-elect Trump’s hard-line immigration crackdown.Â
‘Denver does not speak for all of Colorado, and Denver certainly does not speak for Douglas County,’ Max Brooks, a Castle Rock councilman and state representative, recently told Fox News.
The town council last month unanimously passed Brooks’ measure expressing ‘strong support’ for Trump’s plan to ‘solve this nation’s ever-growing immigration crisis by undertaking mass deportations of unauthorized migrants.’
It added that Castle Rock would ‘cooperate with federal immigration officials’ — in stark contrast to the so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ that refuse to hand over detained illegal aliens.
With some 73,000 residents, Castle Rock is the most populous town in Douglas County, a conservative region where some residents say they’re hurt by the pro-immigrant policies of state leaders.
Brooks says his measure was a direct response to Denver, where Mayor Mike Johnston in November suggested city police could be deployed to resist federal immigration officials in a ‘Tiananmen Square moment’ against mass deportations
The ‘Castle Rock’ mesa that gave the sleepy conservative Colorado town its name
Some of Castle Rock’s 73,000 residents say they’ve been hurt by the state’s pro-immigrant policies
The Democrat later walked back that statement.
Denver welcomed some 43,000 migrants between December 2022 and last summer, city data show.
It spent a whopping $356 million of taxpayers’ money on migrants, according to a study by the Common Sense Institute in November.
The flow of arrivals slowed after President Joe Biden took executive action to tighten the southern border in June 2024.
Denver shuttered its last migrant shelter in October, citing lack of demand.
Brooks says Johnston’s administration was foolhardy to believe all the newcomers would ‘remain within Denver’s walls.’
‘They are going to spread out across the Front Range, which makes this a Colorado Problem,’ he said.
He highlighted Douglas County Jail, where 15 percent of its 369 inmates are listed as non-US citizens.
A viral video of alleged armed Venezuelan gangsters marauding an apartment complex in Aurora, a Denver suburb, last August put Colorado in the crosshairs of a national immigration debate.
It showed men with rifles and handguns purportedly from the prison gang Tren de Aragua threatening apartment residents before a 25-year-old man was shot and killed.
Trump visited the city on the campaign trail last fall, drawing a cheer by vowing to ‘expedite the removals of these savage gangs.’
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, rejects claims that Colorado is a sanctuary state, and this month said federal agents were welcome to help round up and deport criminal irregular migrants.
Donald Trump received a warm welcome at his rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2016
But he added that they shouldn’t go ‘after law-abiding Coloradans who might’ve lived here for 20, 30 years.’
Still, Brooks says Castle Rock and other towns are ‘significantly hamstrung’ by state laws dictating that police cannot work with immigration agents.
Max Brooks, a Castle Rock councilman
A 2019 Colorado law bars police from arresting or detaining someone solely based on a request from federal immigration officials, while probation officers cannot share information about their clients to them.
It allows police to assist federal immigration agents in executing a federal warrant or transferring a prisoner to and from federal custody.
‘The words don’t matter so much as action,’ Brooks said.
‘We want cops to be cops. We want cops to be able to do their jobs.’
Douglas County previously sued the state over its sanctuary policies, but a district court dismissed the suit last month.
Brooks said officials are weighing new legal action, but are waiting to see what happens once Trump is back in the Oval Office.
‘We know that we’re going to secure the southern border,’ Brooks said.
‘We know that Denver is not going to, as much as they perhaps might like, continue to bring in illegal migrants here.’
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris handily defeated Trump in Colorado, even as she lost an election in which immigration was a top issue.
Coloradans are split over whether to help people fleeing from poverty, violence and other problems in Latin America and other parts of the developing world, or to enforce US laws and only welcome legal migrants.
Footage from a resident in an Aurora apartment complex appeared to show armed men knocking on a door, intensifying fears the Tren de Aragua gang was in control of the complexÂ
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said city police could be deployed to resist federal immigration agents in a ‘Tiananmen Square moment’Â
A pretty sunrise with a full moon and a windmill near the town of Castle Rock, Colorado
One Castle Rock resident, who said he legally emigrated from Brazil, said it was difficult to judge how many people had entered the US illegally in recent years.
‘It’s hard ’cause they’re running away from poverty, violence, criminality or whatever they’re running from,’ said the resident, who did not wish to be named.
‘For them to take that step in their life and be such a vulnerable place that they are, it must be really bad out there.’
But Catherine, who said she legally immigrated from Colombia to Colorado two years ago after a nine-year process, said it’s ‘necessary to be strict’ at the border.
‘If you don’t control the rules, probably in [the] future, your country will be the same [as our countries],’ she said.
