The ACLU of Colorado has filed a lawsuit against an Aurora landlord, alleging he threatened to report a Venezuelan couple to immigration authorities, in contravention of state law.

Filed on Tuesday, the ACLU lawsuit cited Colorado’s Immigrant Tenant Protection Act of 2020, which prohibits landlords from using a tenant’s citizenship to threaten to disclose their immigration status to federal authorities. The act also prevents landlords from attempting to evict tenants based on their immigration status.

“We will not allow our immigrant neighbors to be terrorized like this,” Tim Macdonald, legal director ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement. “The landlord’s threats violate Colorado state law, which prevents landlords from trying to take advantage of the perceived immigration status of their tenants and coercing them into refraining from exercising their rights.”

The plaintiffs in the case are a Venezuelan couple with two children who have a pending asylum application. The complaint does not disclose the property nor the name the plaintiffs, referring only to the couple as John Doe and Jane Roe.

One of the defendants denied the allegations, saying the couple failed to pay rent and violated apartment rules. 

The lawsuit named Avi Schwalb, Nancy Dominguez, an assistant manager, and PHS Rent LLC, which is located in one of the properties Schwalb owns, Nordic Arms Apartments in Aurora.

Schwalb said he owns multiple apartment complexes and several single-family homes, all in Aurora.

Schwalb denied the allegations Thursday.

The Venezuelan family has lived in the complex since October, according to court documents.

On Dec. 4, the family was forced to sleep in their vehicle because management had changed the locks on the apartment without proper notice or a court order, according to the complaint. The overnight low in Aurora that night was 18 degrees, according to AccuWeather.

When inquiring with management about the shutout, Dominguez purportedly told the couple that Venezuelans have no rights in the U.S., the complaint said.

Schwalb and Dominguez disputed this account.

“I don’t care what country you’re from as long as you follow the rules in the unit, you respect other tenants and you’re paying rent,” Schwalb told The Denver Gazette Thursday.

The Venezuelans first presented as a family of four, but Schwalb said he soon learned 10 men were living in the two-bedroom apartment, playing music loudly at all hours and not paying the rent after a Denver program — which included the nonprofit group Papagayo — paid the first month’s rent and deposit.

“Right after that, they started falling behind in rent,” Schwalb said.

Schwalb added: “This is America. You have to work and pay bills. You can’t just stay home and think the government is going to pay for everything.”

After multiple attempts to reach the couple over several weeks, Schwalb said they believed the unit — which was sparsely furnished and littered with trash — had been abandoned.

After the couple paid $1,300 over two payments in December, management provided a new apartment key to the couple, who were homeless for roughly a week, said Emma Mclean-Riggs, one of the attorneys representing the couple.

But on Jan. 15, Dominguez told the Venezuelan couple that they had “ten days to move out,” the complaint claimed, adding the assistant manager provided documents that “purported to be a form Demand for Compliance-Residential Eviction Notice,” and for missed payments between Nov. 1, 2024 and Jan. 31, 2025.

“Even if they hadn’t paid any rent, which isn’t the case, there is a legal eviction process,” Mclean-Riggs said.

She said the couple is about $4,200 behind in rent, an amount Schwalb substantiated Thursday.

The complaint also alleged that in a Jan. 24 encounter, Schwalb demanded payment and slammed open the front door, nearly breaking Ms. Doe’s nose, incurring unspecified medical expenses.

“They are taking advantage because the government somehow gave them money to rent apartments,” Schwalb said. “This is insane, really insane.”

Schwalb said he has filed eviction proceedings.

Mclean-Riggs declined to say where the Venezuelan family was living.

Schwalb said Roe moved out in December and does not know who is living in the unit now.

Over the past two years, nearly 43,000 immigrants have made their way to Denver after illegally crossing the U.S-Mexico border. About half have stayed — others used plane, train and bus tickets purchased by Denver taxpayers.

That equates to roughly 21,500 people or a city the size of Golden.

Aurora has emerged as a focal point of the nation’s immigration crisis. Roughly 11 million unlawful immigrants are living in the United States, according to a Pew Research Center estimate.

On the campaign trail President Donald Trump vowed to conduct a mass deportation effort dubbed “Operation Aurora” to root out the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).

TdA rose to prominence last year after taking over a rundown apartment complex in Aurora. City officials responded by shuttering Aspen Grove, leaving about 300 people homeless.

Gang members have been involved in a number of criminal activities that include drug and human trafficking — particularly immigrant women and girls — extortion and money laundering.

Within hours of being sworn in last week, Trump unleashed a flurry of executive orders ranging from U.S. foreign aid and trade to diversity and immigration. Since assuming office, U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents have arrested and detained more than 9,800 individuals believed to be unlawfully living in the United States.

The case was important for the ACLU to take up, Mclean-Riggs said, because of increased “anti-immigrant” rhetoric and fear in the immigrant community from the stepped up enforcement under the new administration.

Denver’s rental assistance program for newly arriving immigrants has come under fire from Aurora officials, notably by Mayor Mike Coffman, who effectively blamed Denver Mayor Mike Johnston for the “national embarrassment” that his city suffered following reports of violence by a Venezuelan gang amid the national debate over how best to confront America’s illegal immigration crisis.

Coffman said the Johnston administration “placed” immigrants in Aurora, refused to tell him where they were housed and how many — and drew up contracts with nonprofits that gave the Denver mayor plausible deniability.

“It gives Johnston cover, should it become public, by allowing him to say that it wasn’t his decision to put them in Aurora; it was the nonprofits who made the decision,” Coffman wrote.

Marielena Suarez, president of the nonprofit Papagayo, did not return a phone call seeking comment by press time.