Federal law enforcement agents announced that they took almost 50 people, including many who were undocumented, into custody Sunday in Adams County.

An operation that involved members of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Drug Enforcement Agency; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and local law enforcement targeted what officials said was drug trafficking that involved members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TdA.

“DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division has been investigating TdA drug trafficking since last summer, and today’s successful operation shows that the men and women of DEA will not rest until our communities are safe from this gang and the drugs they peddle,” Jonathan Pullen, a local DEA special agent in charge, said in a press release Sunday.

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TdA has been at the center of a contentious debate about immigration in Colorado since some Republican city officials in Aurora last year amplified exaggerated and false claims, later repeated by President Donald Trump, that members of the gang had taken over parts of the city.

The site of the raid was an invite-only “makeshift nightclub” at 6600 Federal Boulevard, where “dozens” of TdA-connected people were present, according to federal officials, who characterized the event as a “Tren de Aragua (TdA) party.” More than 100 law enforcement personnel were involved in executing a federal search warrant in the 5 a.m. raid. They took 49 people into custody without incident. Officials said more than 40 of them were undocumented.

Officials said they seized cocaine, crack cocaine, and pink cocaine — also known as “tusi” — as well as “several weapons” and “a large amount of US currency.”

Raquel Lane-Arellano, spokesperson for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said Monday that “it is not usual for ICE to work this closely with the DEA.”

“It is a departure from business as usual, that ICE is not just there but picking up every person,” regardless of whether they were even accused of a crime, Lane-Arellano said, adding, “ICE under Trump has a policy, as they did under Trump’s last term, of picking up as many people as they can. ICE’s policy is detain now, ask questions later. That’s what we saw yesterday morning.”

Many of the Adams County detainees appear to have been placed in the immigration enforcement system. The Aurora Sentinel reported that about 40 people remained in ICE custody as of Sunday afternoon.

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“Which is incredibly troubling, because in the criminal justice system you have the right to an attorney if you cannot afford one. In immigration there is no right to due process or an attorney if you cannot afford one,” Lane-Arellano said.

Under the Trump administration, which came to power a week ago, the kind of collaboration between federal law enforcement agencies that was seen in Adams County has increased, Lane-Arellano said.

“It’s incredibly dangerous, because it makes it less likely that people will report crimes when they are the victims, and frankly it criminalizes this entire group of people and denies the right to ‘innocent until proven guilty’ by putting them in indefinite detention, regardless of whether any crime was actually committed,” she said.

Newsline asked an ICE spokesperson for more information about the raid, including the identities of the people who were detained. The spokesperson referred a reporter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver. A spokesperson from the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

Sgt. Adam Sherman, a spokesperson for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, said just one or two members of the sheriff’s office were involved in the raid, and their role was limited to “traffic control and outer-scene security.” To his knowledge, no other local law enforcement participated in the raid.

Trump has vowed to deport undocumented people “at a level nobody has ever seen before.” During a campaign rally in October in Aurora he falsely said that the city had been “invaded and conquered” by TdA. He said he planned to “hunt down, arrest and deport” undocumented immigrants connected to gangs and dubbed the plan Operation Aurora.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.