Former President Donald Trump’s rally in Aurora this week promises to shine a focus on the Republican nominee’s immigration proposals amid competing conclusions about the role a Venezuelan gang has played in the Colorado city.

Describing Aurora, the state’s third-largest city, as a “war zone” suffering from an influx of violent gang members, Trump’s campaign announced on Monday that the candidate plans to address supporters on Friday afternoon at Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, a complex at the city’s northern edge near Denver International Airport. The rally will be Trump’s first public event in Colorado since early 2020.

Trump plans to press attacks over immigration and border security at the rally, drawing a contrast with Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris, his campaign suggested in the announcement.

“Kamala Harris’ open-border policies are turning once-safe communities into nightmares for law-abiding citizens,” the Trump campaign said. “Kamala’s border bloodbath has made every state a border state, leaving Colorado families at the mercy of criminals.”

A spokeswoman for Harris’ campaign in Colorado told Colorado Politics that Trump was playing politics with immigrants and the border.

“Donald Trump will say anything to distract from the truth,” said Kara Powell, deputy state communications director for the Colorado Harris-Walz Campaign. “When given the chance, he tanked the strongest border security deal in decades, because he’d rather run on a problem than fix it.”

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman, on Tuesday disputed Trump’s characterization of the city, calling Trump’s claims about the Venezuelan gang’s influence “grossly exaggerated,” and reiterated an invitation to give Trump an up-close view of the situation on the ground in Aurora.

“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city — not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said in a statement to Colorado Politics. “My public offer to show him our community and meet with our police chief for a briefing still stands.”

Coffman, who doesn’t plan to attend the rally, added: “The reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been grossly exaggerated. The incidents were limited to several apartment complexes in this city of more than 400,000 residents.”

Trump’s rally is set to take place more than a month after the Republican first cast a spotlight on reported illegal gang activity in Aurora by Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang with origins in Venezuelan prisons commonly known as TdA, during a Sept. 4 town hall televised by Fox News Channel.

“At Aurora in Colorado, where Venezuelans are taking over the whole town, they’re taking over buildings, the whole town,” Trump told Fox host Sean Hannity, adding that his response will include “the largest deportation in history.”

A week later, at the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Harris, Trump mentioned Aurora twice, both times in the same breath as references to Springfield, Ohio, where Trump asserted that Haitian immigrants were eating other people’s dogs and cats, despite no evidence that’s happened.

“You look at Springfield in Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado,” Trump said during the debate. “They are taking over the towns. They are taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden let into our country.”

Trump said at a campaign event days later that he would start the massive deportation effort in Aurora and Springfield, and, on Sept. 18 at a rally on Long Island in New York, Trump promised he would visit Aurora within two weeks.

In response, Coffman called Trump’s narrative “false,” and a local immigrant rights advocacy group said Trump was pushing a “racist agenda” that had nothing to do with public safety.

“Trump’s fear mongering is as dangerous as it is dishonest,” said Gladis Ibarra, co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “He doesn’t care about Aurora or Colorado. He’s using us as political pawns to push a racist agenda that paints our entire community in a bad light, and we won’t fall for it.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who is running to represent a neighboring congressional district, said she welcomes Trump’s visit.

“As I’ve said for months, we are ready and thrilled to have President Trump visit Colorado, as we’ve seen first hand the horrible effects of the Biden-Harris Administration on our communities,” Boebert said in a text message.

“From record costs on groceries and gas to dangerous Venezuelan criminals terrorizing our residents, we are sick of Kamala Harris crushing our state and our country’s future. We need President Trump back in office and his rally in Aurora on Friday will highlight everything he plans to do to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, the Democratic congressman who represents Aurora, however, told Colorado Politics that he plans to “let folks know that Aurora is not Trump country.”

“We’re a community that takes great pride in our immigrants and refugees,” Crow said in an interview. “We are addressing our public safety issues and our housing issues, and we don’t need somebody coming and telling lies and demonizing our immigrants and our refugees.”

Crow said Trump’s repeated contention that Colorado is being “taken over” by transnational gangs, including TdA, “is not remotely true” but stressed that he’s reluctant to play into Trump’s hands by discussing the issue on the Republican’s terms.

“With Donald Trump, I will push back when I think it’s necessary and appropriate, but I also don’t like giving oxygen or a platform for the man’s lies and misinformation,” Crow said.

“That’s part of what he does,” the congressman said. “He says outrageous things, he lies, and then he wants people to respond to it. He wants to bait folks. So, I don’t respond to every crazy thing he says, because otherwise I’d be doing nothing but responding to the crazy things he says.”

Crow added that he nonetheless considers it his job “to push back on demonization, to push back on dangerous rhetoric and to defend our community and protect vulnerable populations.”

“We’re going to tell our story about what our community actually is, what Aurora actually is, and that’s just as important as combating the lies,” Crow said.

Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams told Colorado Politics that Trump’s visit will bring needed attention to a situation he described as dangerous for state residents.

“Colorado Republicans are proud to welcome President Donald J. Trump to Aurora as he sheds light on the illegal immigration problem in our state,” Williams said in a text message. “There is a national crisis at our southern border that is harming Colorado, and voters are ready to put him back in the White House to solve it once and for all.”

Williams’ counterpart across the aisle, Colorado Democratic Chair Shad Murib, said Trump’s pending visit recalled the previous time the Republican held a rally in the state, on Feb. 20, 2020, with former Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner at his side.

“The last time Donald Trump came to Colorado, he helped make certain Cory Gardner would lose his election, and he appears set to do the same to Republican candidates across the state when he visits Aurora this Friday,” Murib said in an emailed statement.

“Coloradans aren’t fooled: Trump isn’t coming to Aurora to talk about lifting up working people and creating a safer, more prosperous America. Trump is coming to spew hatred and division that’s not reflective of the Colorado we fight for every day. Hopefully, he plays his greatest hits before his supporters start leaving the rally early, per usual.”

Last August, 300 people were evicted from the Aspen Grove apartments in Aurora in an urgent dispossession that officials claimed was for the safety of the residents. Mountains of trash had overflowed into the parking lot, which brought rodents. Residents also complained of heat issues, water leaks, broken windows and burned-out kitchens.

The city boarded up and fenced off the complex.

Initially, local officials dismissed the assertion by the property management company that the presence of gang members precluded it from doing its work at Aspen Grove and that it feared for the safety of its staffers and residents. The city called it an “alternative narrative” to the numerous code violations and the poor condition of the building.

Officials began walking back their statements after the video of armed men barging into apartment units surfaced and a cache of letters from a law firm representing CBZ Management — written a month before the federal government acknowledged TDA had extended its tentacles into Denver — became public.

More recently, a national law firm that investigated the claims said that, through violence and intimidation, the gang took over Whispering Pines — another complex owned by CBZ Management — and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord, according to a law firm’s investigation.

Aurora officials also acknowledged that authorities had arrested people suspected — though not yet confirmed at the time of their apprehensions — of being members of the Venezuelan gang long before the media spotlight on the city. The gang’s activities also “significantly affected” apartment complexes in the city, officials said.