Reports in recent weeks indicated that armed members of a notorious criminal gang from Venezuela, known as Tren de Aragua, were committing violent crimes and even taking over apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado.

Former President Donald Trump traveled to the suburb of Denver in the reliably blue state and promised residents there that, if re-elected, he would take action to save them from the violent illegal alien gang members that Democrats and the media have minimized or dismissed, according to NPR.

During the 90-minute rally, Trump announced a plan he has dubbed "Operation Aurora" that would utilize a specific wartime authority to arrest and deport any illegal alien with ties to criminal gangs.

Trump travels to Aurora, Colorado

USA Today reported that former President Trump told the large crowd of his supporters that, "We're here finally, in Aurora, Colorado to call the attention of the world ... to one of the most egregious betrayals that any leader in any nation has ever inflicted on its own people."

He asserted that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had "imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world," per NPR, and said, "And she has had them resettled, beautifully, into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens, that’s what they’re doing. And no place is it more evident than right here."

The former president went on to vow, "I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered. We will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country."

The outlet noted that local authorities, including Republican Mayor Mike Coffman, have downplayed the violence and crime of Venezuelan gang members and reports of them taking over apartment buildings and other areas as being "grossly exaggerated" by the former president and others.

It was also pointed out that Aurora Police recently arrested 10 members of the Tren de Aragua gang, nearly all for multiple violent crimes including assaults and shootings -- which, while meant to be reassuring, simply reinforces Trump's desire to highlight the danger those and other illegal alien gang members pose to everybody else.

The wartime authority that Trump seeks to utilize against gang members

To make good on that promise, former President Trump would, if re-elected, launch a program he called "Operation Aurora" that would utilize the wartime authorities of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows presidents to detain and deport without hearings the citizens of foreign enemy nations.

The Act has been used before on at least three occasions by different presidents, and while its authorities are largely contingent on a congressional declaration of war, it can also be triggered by a president in response to an "invasion" or "predatory incursion," which could conceivably be interpreted to apply to illegal alien gang members.

Some might argue that Trump's plan to utilize that law without a formal declaration of war would be illegal and unjustified in itself, but it should be noted that the Supreme Court has upheld the Act's authority for a president to use even when the nation is not formally at war, as was the case in the years following the conclusions of World Wars One and Two, when citizens of belligerent nations continued to be detained and deported out of the U.S.

Trump posted his plan on Truth Social

While former President Trump shared his "Operation Aurora" plan at his rally in the Colorado suburb, he also posted the idea on his Truth Social account on Friday.

"We will send elite squads of ICE, border patrol, and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest, and deport every last illegal alien gang member, until there is not a single one left," Trump wrote. "If they come back, it’s an automatic ten years in jail with no possibility of parole -- and I am hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer."

"We will close the border. We will stop the invasion of illegals into our Country. We will defend our territory. We will not be conquered," he added. "We will reclaim our sovereignty -- and Colorado will vote for Trump as a protest and signal to the world that we are not going to take it anymore. I will liberate Colorado. I will give you back your freedom and your life!"