Five People to Watch in 2025: Danielle Jurinsky, the New Face of Aurora

Danielle Jurinsky isn't done yet.

The first-term councilwoman played a key role in the Venezuelan gang controversy that clouded Aurora in the months before former president Donald Trump won reelection...and it hasn't lifted yet.

In August, a video surfaced of armed Venezuelans walking through the Edge of Lowry, an apartment complex at 1218 Dallas Street that was home to dozens of Venezuelan migrants. Headlines were already swirling that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua had taken over an apartment complex with the same owners at 1568 Nome Street, which the City of Aurora said it had to shut down for code violations.

As national and international media picked up the story, the video from the Edge spurred belief that violent gangs of Venezuelan migrants were terrorizing Aurora. The spotlight was on Colorado's third-largest city and, undaunted by the heat, Jurinsky grabbed the mic.

"Tren de Aragua came into our state, entered Aurora and caused damage and really hurt people," she says. "There's some good that has come out of that, though, for me both personally and professionally. I saw people come together." 


But Jurinsky wants people to know that she's not in this for publicity. She made personal connections with the migrants living at the Edge of Lowry, she says, bringing them food, hearing their stories and helping them. Using a translation app, she told them about victims' visas, which let undocumented immigrants stay in the country if they've been victims of a serious crime.

"It really has been very enlightening for me to learn more about the migrant community, understand their journey," she says. "Almost overnight, I went from 'Deport them now' to 'Save them now.'"

Save migrants from the violent gangs that followed them across the border, Jurinsky means. She still welcomes Trump's deportation plan titled Operation Aurora, though she notes that the incoming administration still hasn't made clear "what it is, what it means," she says. She pushes back on the idea that the mass deportations that the media suggests will really take place.
"What I push back on is instilling the fear of mass deportations, that they're going to tear families apart, take children from their parents, on this narrative that people that have been here twenty, thirty years are going to be thrown out," she says. "It has been made very clear they're coming for the criminals first."


"I still very much believe that the rule of law must be upheld. We must have a secure border," she says. "It's so unfortunate that our immigration system became broken, and our border became so open that groups like Tren de Aragua were able to follow these people looking for a better life, looking to get away from individuals like them."

Jurinsky's first term as an at-large member of Aurora City Council will be up this year, and she's likely to face competition in her bid for a second term. But however voters may feel about her position on immigration, they would have a hard time denying that she's an Auroran through and through.

She was born at the Medical Center of Aurora North when it was Aurora Presbyterian. She grew up near South Peoria Street and East Jewell Avenue, and graduated from the nearby Prairie Middle and Overland High schools. She got her associate's degree in 2024 from the Community College of Aurora, and she owns the bar JJ's Place at 2340 South Chambers Road. She says she plans to use her national platform to "highlight the positive aspects of Aurora" going into 2025.

"We have the most diverse city in the state, so we are very much representative of an immigration system that works," Jurinsky concludes. "People want to see what happens with immigration in Aurora, but what I really want is for people to be okay. With all my heart, I'm invested in Aurora." 

Editor's note: At the start of the new year, Westword publishes a People to Watch issue, full of individuals we think deserve your attention...for better or worse. For the 2025 edition that hits the streets tomorrow, we chose 25 individuals ranging from planners to pot moguls to pot-stirrers. Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky certainly qualifies as the latter, and was the clear choice for the cover. Her allegations about the actions of Venezuelan gangs in Aurora — some accurate, some not, and all hysterically hyped — put metro Denver in the national spotlight and brought once-and-future president Donald Trump to Colorado's third-largest city for a rally in October. With Trump now promising mass deportations as soon as he takes office January 20, that scrutiny will only get more glaring in the new year.

Here are more People to Watch in 2025 (and watch for more coming soon):

"Culture Club: Five People to Watch in the Arts Scene in 2025"

"Power Couples: Six People to Watch in the Food Scene in 2025"

"Sounding Off: Five People to Watch in the Music Scene in 2025"