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Exclusive: Hispanics who live in democratic-run jurisdictions are unhappy with the sanctuary policy, according to a Colorado Latino lawmaker.
While some Democrats and the media are trying to portray Hispanics as universally opposed to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, R-Colo Rep. Gabe Evans said the reality in his district is very different.
Both Colorado and Denver have sanctuary policies that limit the ability of local law enforcement to work with ice and other federal immigration enforcement agencies. Evans said this led to a significant increase in crime and violence in his community.
Earlier this year, then DEA administrator Derek Maltz said that the sanctuary policy allowed Colorado to become “ground zero for some of America’s most violent criminals.”
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Left: A secret FBI agent communicates on February 5, 2025, during a federal gang attack at Cedar Run Apartment in Denver. Right: Gabe Evans (R-Colo), a former police officer and only Latino member of the Colorado Legislature delegation, opposes the sanctuary policy that he says promotes violence in Hispanic communities. (Shane Anthony from Fox News and RJ Sangosti/Medianews Group/The Denver Post for Fox News for Fox News)
Tren de Aragua, also known for its acronym “TDA,” is a violent Venezuelan crime group that has been linked in recent years to some of America’s most popular crimes.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Evans, a young Latino, former police officer representing the district just north of Denver, further confirmed that his district’s sanctuary policy is wreaking havoc for both Hispanic lives and businesses.
“In my district, I had one of the first major assaults we saw about the new administration, where over 40 Tren de Aragua gang members and their affiliates were all arrested by the DEA in conjunction with other agencies,” he said. “We’re talking about guns, drugs, trafficking and child abuse… these are people who have been blessed in our society under the policies of the sanctuary state of Colorado.”
As the sole Latinx member of Congress’s Colorado delegation, Evans said the sanctuary policy was personal.
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According to law enforcement, members of the Tren de Aragua gang are about to attack an apartment in Aurora, Colorado. (Edward Romero)
“We don’t want these people in our community,” he said.
“I talk to local Hispanic business owners and people who are not just the main pillars of the Hispanic community, but these are husbands and wives, moms and dads too, and they don’t want Tren Delagua in their community.
Evans shared that one member who owns a Hispanic grocery store regularly loses thousands of dollars a day during the Biden administration due to illegal immigration crimes.
“He said the past few years under the Biden administration were scary because illegal immigrants come to his shops on a daily basis — we spoke every day or week, stole thousands of dollars of goods from him,” he explained. “But because of the policies of the sanctuary states, and because the previous administration had zero desire to enforce the law, there was nothing he could do about it.”
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Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden showed them side by side. Latino voters in the democratically run sanctuary jurisdiction say Hispanic Republicans are focusing on the issue of crime under the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement approach. (Reuters wins McNamee/Pool via Getty Images)
“There was nothing that state or local law enforcement could do because it was prohibited by these sanctuary laws and the federal government had no interest in it, so he sees him walking around his shop every week, sometimes on a regular basis, hurting him as a direct result of these policies.
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“In our community, we don’t want drug dealers, cartels, criminals, or gang rape,” he continued. “So this is focused on cracking down on these criminal elements that are not only illegally present in the US, but also committing other crimes, and we’ve been behind for a long time, and there’s a lot of support for it in the Hispanic community.”
Fox News Digital contacted the office of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston for comments, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Peter Pinedo is a political writer for Fox News Digital.
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