February 06, 2025 10:12 AM UTC

The Symbolism of Lizard Man Praising Wednesday ICE Raids

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• by: Colorado Pols

Federal police officers launched White House-mandated immigration raids throughout the Denver Metro area on Wednesday. It’s not yet clear how successful those raids might have been, or how targeted they might have been toward capturing more dangerous illegal immigrants.

As The Aurora Sentinel reports:

Twenty-four hours after federal police officials launched raids at several apartment complexes in Aurora and Denver in search of more than 100 Venezuelan gang members and others linked to illegal drugs, no information has been released of who was arrested or for what.

Wednesday was a day of dramatic social media posts made by a variety of federal agencies that had planned a search for violent members of the Tren de Aragua gang and undocumented immigrants trafficking fentanyl and other drugs.

The accounts of residents and immigration activists paint a picture of mostly haphazard banging on apartment doors and asking residents for proof of citizenship. It’s unclear if any warrants were issued or served.

The raids received plenty of criticism, but there was some enthusiasm from politically-minded residents:

“If you come into our community to commit crime and sell drugs and prostitution, kidnap and torture people, and you come immigrated without documentation, you should be deported because you’re here actively committing crimes, not only against citizens but also other people who are undocumented immigrants,” said Stephen Elkins, who lives in a neighborhood of one of the raided apartments and is preparing to run for Aurora City Council in Ward I. [Pols emphasis]

He said he’s sympathetic to immigrants in the community, but he thinks the raids are a net benefit for Aurora.

Crack Denver7 investigative reporter Tony Kovaleski managed to find another local resident who was in favor of Wednesday’s raids:

You can click here for the full report from Denver7.

We’re poking fun at Kovaleski, but the fact that this was the most, um, eloquent pro-raid resident he could track down does speak volumes about the extent of a manufactured crisis being orchestrated by the Trump administration. As the Sentinel and other news outlets report, this seemed like more of a fishing expedition than a targeted enforcement.

From The Denver Post:

Crystal Villa, another Cedar Run resident of three years, said federal agents woke her up around 6 a.m. She showed a reporter Ring doorbell footage in which a man wearing a Homeland Security Investigations vest asked if she had drugs, if she was with anyone, if the agent could come into her apartment and if she spoke English.

She was born and raised in Colorado, Villa said while still dressed in her pajamas.

We have no doubt that many of the federal law enforcement agents involved in Wednesday’s raid felt as silly as they looked in many cases. But like thousands of federal employees being cast by the Trump administration and Prime Minister Elon Musk in a variety of roles, they are unwitting actors in one big, ridiculous performance.