Trump Says He’ll Visit Springfield, Aurora in ‘Next 2 Weeks’

Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Uniondale, N.Y., on Sept. 18, 2024. David Dee Delgado/AFP via Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump will visit Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, amid a surge in reports of illegal immigrant crime in both cities.

“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump announced at a Sept. 18 rally in Uniondale, New York.

“You may never see me again, but that’s OK. I gotta do what I gotta do,” he added, alluding to the recent assassination attempts targeting him.

In recent weeks, Springfield has been targeted by fake bomb threats made from a foreign country, which authorities have not publicly identified.

The city has also been at the center of reports of residents’ pet cats being eaten by illegal immigrants.

State officials have dismissed those claims as false. But a police report obtained by government watchdog group Judicial Watch shows that at least one resident called to report her neighbors for allegedly stealing and chopping up her cat. And Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate, claims to have received similar complaints from Springfield residents firsthand.

In Aurora, some residents have been victimized by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which seized control of apartment buildings in the city.

In a 10-page letter to city officials, attorney T. Markus Funk from Perkins Coie—a Denver law firm hired to investigate the matter—described the gang’s takeover of the Whispering Pines apartments using threats of violence and murder going back as far as November 2023.

“The gang, which operates in the open and uses firearms to patrol ‘their property,’ has intimidated staff, stabbed at least one vulnerable immigrant in the apartments because of alleged non-payment, and otherwise terrorized the community,” Funk wrote.

Decrying the situation at his New York rally, Trump criticized the response of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who waved off early reports of the problem as fiction.

“They’re taking over large pieces of real estate in Colorado, and you have a Democrat governor who’s petrified of them,” Trump said.

Trump’s announcement that he will visit Springfield and Aurora follows his recent pledge to make them the starting point for “the largest deportation in the history of our country,” an operation he intends to launch if elected to a second presidential term this November.

The former president made the promise at a news conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on Sept. 13.

He has not yet announced the dates of his upcoming visits.

Allan Stein and Janice Hisle contributed to this report.