While Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman will not attend former President Donald Trump’s rally on Friday, Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, who has talked about the Venezuelan gang’s activities in her city with local and national media organizations, said she was asked to speak at the event.

Jurinsky said she did not have any further details about when or what she would speak about.

“It has been grossly overstated that the entire city of Aurora has been overrun by gangs,” Jurinsky said. “But I don’t want the situation downplayed because even one apartment complex taken over by this Venezuelan gang is one too many for me, and we have three.”

In the last month, Trump has cited Aurora in his attack on the Biden administration’s immigration policy, claiming that a Venezuelan gang has “taken over” the Colorado city of nearly 400,000 residents.

Aurora officials, who initially denied the claims of intense gang activity in the city, have since acknowledged that members of Tren de Aragua, a prison gang from Venezuela, have been responsible for crimes at apartment buildings.

Officials began walking back their statements after the video of armed men barging into apartment units surfaced and a cache of letters from a law firm representing CBZ Management — written a month before the federal government acknowledged TDA had extended its tentacles into Denver — became public.

More recently, a national law firm that investigated the claims said that, through violence and intimidation, the gang took over Whispering Pines — another complex owned by CBZ Management — and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord, according to a law firm’s investigation.

Aurora officials also acknowledged that authorities had arrested people suspected — though not yet confirmed at the time of their apprehensions — of being members of the Venezuelan gang long before the media spotlight on the city. The gang’s activities also “significantly affected” apartment complexes in the city, officials said.

City officials and the police maintained that the gang’s influence is limited.

Jurinsky said she appreciates Trump’s visit to Aurora, calling it a “moment in history.”

“I might have a bias about Aurora, but I believe we are important … and I think this is exciting,” she said. “Should he win in November, then we just had the next President of the United States come visit Aurora, Colorado, and I think that’s fantastic.”

Aurora being thrown into the national spotlight hasn’t hurt the city at all, Jurinsky said. Rather, the “broken immigration system” has hurt Aurora, she said.

In fact, the media attention on the city and the Venezeulan gang have been a positive development for the city, Jurinsky said.

“I don’t think exposing a very violent transnational gang that was hiding within our city hurts us at all,” she said. “If anything, it helped. Several of those individuals have since been arrested.”

“You’ve seen arrest warrants out for others,” she added.

Coffman denied an interview request but said in a statement that he will not attend Friday’s rally. The city’s Republican mayor, who served in Congress, did not specify why he is not attending the rally.

“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city — not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said. “My public offer to show him our community and meet with our police chief for a briefing still stands.”

Coffman said the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been “grossly exaggerated.”

“The incidents were limited to several apartment complexes in this city of more than 400,000 residents,” Coffman said.

Curtis Gardner, another conservative member of Aurora’s City Council, said he will not attend the rally Friday, but would be “happy to meet any political candidate who is interested in hearing the real story of Aurora.”

“My concern is that former President Trump’s visit will further inflame a public safety issue that has featured lots of misinformation because the story has been warped for electoral purposes,” Gardner said.

Trump is scheduled to speak at 1 p.m. on Friday at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center near Denver International Airport.