Colorado Apartment Residents Fight Anti-Immigrant Misinformation Amid Viral Video Of Armed Men

Residents of an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, are speaking out after viral videos showing armed men entering one of the apartments have prompted anti-immigrant rhetoric, fearmongering and misinformation.

The videos were released by former residents at The Edge at Lowry Apartments and depicted several Spanish-speaking men with guns making their way up a set of stairs and into an apartment on Aug. 18.

Conservatives including former President Donald Trump began to spew unfounded claims that a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua was running the complexand taking advantage of residents.

Residents sought to set the record straight during a press conference on Tuesday to dispel rumors that the entire complex was taken over by a migrant gang. Many took the opportunity and also drew attention to the unsanitary living conditions inside the apartment complex, including mice, piles of trash that hadn’t been collected, faulty appliances, leaky pipes, and more, according to The Associated Press.

“The only criminal here is the owner of the building,” said a resident named Moises Didenot, who is from Venezuela, according to the AP. Didenot also displayed live mice on a trap that he had caught recently in his apartment.

“I have been here for a year, and I have not received any kind of violence,” another resident said at the press conference, according to CBS News.

Another resident, who did not reveal their name, said that the narrative of a takeover from Tren de Aragua has prompted people in the Aurora community to classify all the residents at the Lowry Apartments as criminals.

“They are trying to put us all in one group, all in one bag,” the resident said. “They are trying to say that here there are delinquents, there