Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora is preparing to serve as a detention center for “criminal aliens” as the Trump administration intends to start a mass deportation effort called “Operation Aurora” as soon as Thursday.
Officials with the U.S. Northern Command said that they started work Monday to prepare Buckley for use by Homeland Security as a temporary detention center. ICE has asked for the facilities to hold a temporary operations center, a staging area and a temporary holding location for the holding and processing of what Northern Command said were "illegal aliens." The facility will be manned by ICE senior leaders and other federal law enforcement, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Northern Command.
But while the official beginning of the crackdown is said to be set for Thursday, there is also considerable evidence that a more informal version may have started Sunday morning in an Adams County warehouse.
More than 48 hours after federal law enforcement agencies conducted a raid on a makeshift
Federal Boulevard nightclub and took 49 people into custody, no criminal charges have been filed against anyone.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on what, if anything, is happening to those who were said to have been found with guns and drugs in the large building at 6600 Federal, in unincorporated Adams County.
The local sheriff said he didn’t know where the people went, he just provided security on the federal search warrant. The local district attorney hasn’t received any investigative materials from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for prosecution. He doesn’t even have a list of names of people who were taken into custody.
None of those people are in the Adams County or Denver jails. CPR News could find no evidence that any have made federal court appearances, which would have occurred within 24 hours in most cases for criminal defendants.
The result, at least so far, is that while federal authorities claimed several criminal violations and that many of those detained were part of a violent Venezuelan criminal gang, none of those assertions have been tested in court or put in any written court record -- and may never be.
“I learned about that raid on the news just like everyone else,” said Adams County District Attorney Brian Mason. “If in fact there was illegal activity taking place that led to those arrests and that illegal activity is potentially involving state crimes, then I would assume the DEA would eventually contact the district attorney’s office. The DEA has not contacted us.”
DEA officials say that 41 of the 49 were not authorized to be in the country.
No one is publicly saying where those 41 people went, though immigration lawyers who work at the federal immigration detention center in Aurora regularly say they suspect they were booked into the immigration detention facility and are subject to deportation. Charges could still be filed later by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Other attorneys speculate those in the country legally were let go.
“Based on information from some community members, it does sound like a lot of people were taken to the ICE facility in Aurora,” said Laura Lunn, a lawyer at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network who works as a defense attorney at the GEO Detention facility. Her organization has received communications from family members of some of the 49 people detained. “If someone is picked up on a criminal charge, they are going to be taken into criminal custody, a lot of the people picked up are being taken straight into immigration custody, that might be an indication that there are no pending criminal matters.”
The tussle between local and federal law enforcement officers is only expected to heighten as federal officials prioritize increasing deportations above everything else and local law enforcement officials -- like Mason -- would like to see people who allegedly commit crimes in his jurisdiction face consequences in the local criminal justice system.
Just last week, Mason dropped the charges against an accused Venezuelan gang member who was reportedly involved in a multi-person shootout in an apartment building last July in Aurora that left two men wounded because investigators couldn’t find enough proof that he pulled the trigger that left a man critically wounded, according to a court filing.
But, the man, Jhonnarty Pacheco-Chirinos, who is known by the Aurora Police Department to be a Venezuelan gang member, could potentially face other criminal charges -- that is if he is still in the country.
Steffan Tubbs, a Denver spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency, called Sunday morning’s action apolitical and said the office had been working on tracking down Venezuelan gang members since last August.
“The Drug Enforcement Administration is not red, it's not blue. We are in charge of enforcing the drug laws of the United States of America, and our work continues,” Tubbs said. “What they’re going to do with those folks, I think you can appreciate that has nothing to do with us.”
The search warrant that was said to have been served in the early morning raid has not yet been released. It’s not known what agents or federal prosecutors might have told a judge in order to get a signature on that warrant -- or even which judge signed it.
Meantime, if the 41 people picked up Sunday and said to be unlawfully present in the U.S. haven’t yet been removed from the U.S., they may soon have a lot of company.
NBC News first reported Tuesday that Aurora is the next target for the Trump administration’s enforcement action with an operation planned Thursday. Aurora was a focus of the Trump campaign and he said his heightened interest in immigration enforcement would be called “Operation Aurora.” That was followed by the confirmation by U.S. Northern Command that the Buckley base would be utilized as part of that operation.
Other federal officials declined to comment on any potential enforcement actions this week in Aurora. Through a spokesman, Aurora said their employees aren’t involved in any development or “activation” of any immigration plans.
“Colorado state law prohibits local governments from engaging in typical immigration-specific enforcement or detention. We focus on enforcing state and local law,” the statement said. “We will work with our federal partners and follow federal law and directives as they apply to our community and as we are allowed.”
