During a town hall in Aurora on Thursday, August 21, Bennet and Crow promised to oppose Trump's threats to immigrants, elections and civil service.
"I've never been more scared for this democracy in my life. I can't believe that we're in the position we are in today," Bennet said. "I have absolutely no doubt that we are going to come through this stronger than we've ever been before."
The town hall, hosted at Smokey Hill High School in Aurora, attracted a crowd of hundreds that mostly filled the 700-seat school auditorium. The two congressmen took about eight or nine questions, but spoke for more than an hour. Here are issues that were brought up the most during the town hall, and how Bennet and Crow reacted.
Will Trump Send the Military to Colorado?
Jay Hopkins, a retired veterinarian, told Bennet and Crow that he's fearful of Trump's actions before asking, "Should we be getting ready to see military on our streets because this president has issues with Aurora?"Trump came to Aurora in October to campaign and capitalize on the sensationalized claim that violent Venezuelan gangs were taking over the city. He framed it as a failure of local immigration policies, and initially named his mass deportation plan "Operation Aurora."
Crow, a former U.S. Army Ranger, said "the abuse of the military by this president has been astonishing, and I think it will only get worse." He notes that when Trump deployed the National Guard to quell protests in California in June and to enforce the law in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, local and state officials didn't ask for it.
"In almost all these instances, it was not not asked for by the mayors, it was not asked for by the governors," He said. "It's meant to show his strength and his control and his authority, which is a very disturbing playbook."
Crow said he wants to pass legislation to put guardrails in place to prevent "abuse of our military," citing Trump's borthday military parade on June 14 as a similar example.
Bennet mocked how small the parade was, which got laughs and a round of applause. "It was tiny," Bennet said. "That parade was really small."
Threats to Mail-In Voting
Earlier this month, Trump vowed to end mail-in voting. On August 18, Denver Clerk Paul Lopez put out a statement saying, "Trump’s recent rant to call for the elimination of mail-in voting is both illegal and unconstitutional."Similar to statements from elected state officials, like Governor Jared Polis and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Bennet said that Colorado will not give up mail-in voting after a concerned resident said they were worried about Trump's ability to take away rights.
"That is one of things that Donald Trump has proposed that is so deeply unpopular with the American people, I guarantee you there is no way he's going to take this away," Bennet said. "Rural Colorado is never going to give up on mail-in ballots. Never."
Residents at the town hall said they were worried about Trump's threats to elections and the environment and his use the military.
Bennito L. Kelty
Federal Workforce Under Trump
One of Trump's first actions in office, aside from attacking the immigration system, was heavily downsizing the federal workforce. Employees have been cut across federal departments since Trump was elected, although several rounds of those terminations were reversed by court orders. Still, the workforce reduction has affected Colorado's national parks and forests as well as its Veterans Affairs hospitals and services.Crow described the federal downsizing as a "war on government and civil service" and warned that people are going to feel the effects locally.
"It's going to get worse, and there are going to be severe consequences for folk, because we are getting rid of some of our most talented and important people in our country," Crow said. "In many cases, there is no one at the wheel anymore."
Crow believes that Congress needs to reform its services to become more efficient, but not firing people and shutting down agencies were wrong and shortsighted. Crow said this reform should have happened when Congress decided national the budget, which wrapped up in July with the passage of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill."
"People are frustrated that certain things aren't working, and the remedy to that isn't to destroy it all and burn it all down," he said. "The remedy is to actually have a sensible reform agenda...it shouldn't take eight years to build a bridge in America."
Latest on ICE Detention Facilities
Crow updated on the crowd on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that arrests and deports immigrants, and its expansion plans. According to Crow, when he and other Colorado congressional Democrats toured the Aurora ICE facility on Monday, August 11, they ran into "numerous obstacles that we hadn't seen before.""One of the biggest is that they don't answer any of our questions anymore," he said. "They just refer us to the main office in Washington, nor could they give us an actual headcount."
Crow was not sure of the current capacity, but based on what he saw while touring the facility, the House representative believes there are around 1,300 people detained there, which would be a decrease from the 1,400 he reported in May. The New York Times reported on August 11 that 60,000 people are currently detained by ICE nationwide. The Washington Post reported on August 15 that ICE plans to increase its capacity at detention facilities across the country to more than 100,000 people.
Crow said that his staff plans to tour the Aurora ICE facility again this week "to continue routine oversight." He has an ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration to grant access to ICE detention facilities under a law that Crow helped pass. He filed a preliminary injunction earlier this month in hopes that a judge would force Trump to abide by that law, which allows members of Congress to drop by immigration facilities with only 24 hours notice.
"It's very clear that members of Congress and their staff must have immediate, unfettered access to these facilities," he said. "In the meantime, my team continues to conduct oversight."
The Washington Post also reported that ICE plans to open three new detention facilities in Colorado in Hudson, Walsenburg and Ignacio. Crow said ICE still hasn't confirmed all three new detention facilities are coming to Colorado, but did inform him on August 11 of plans to open a facility in Hudson.
"I'm disturbed by it, because I think it's an indication that they're looking to ramp up the mass deportation efforts, which is very different from targeted criminal enforcement. There's very little, if any, disagreement in this country about enforcing against violent criminals," Crow said. "But what is disturbing is that the administration has tripled the budget of ICE."
Trump's Big Beautiful Bill allocates nearly $75 billion for ICE, including $30 billion to hire more personal and expand operations and $45 billion to open new detention centers and add capacity to existing ones. According to Crow, ICE is now 'the largest law enforcement agency in the history of this country" and now has more funding than the combined budgets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"It actually has a bigger budget than the United States Marine Corps," Crow said. "And they're looking at ramping up the number of facilities, which I think is an omen for the mass deportation to come."
Climate Change Under Trump
A retired botanist for the Environmental Protection Agency asked the two congressmen what kind of threat the climate faces under the Trump administration."This is going to be a rough time, environmentally, in America. It's going to be rough," Bennet answered. "We live in a country where the vast majority of people believe climate change is real, and we need to deal with it."
Bennet agreed that they need to address climate change, and said that Trump is running an energy policy "no better than 'drill, baby, drill.'" and he's "doing all of this in service to the oil and gas industry."
Without getting specific, Bennet said "we're going to have to fight back," and Colorado will lead the way.
"Colorado can lead all fifty states on climate policy," Bennet said. "I think in this moment when Donald Trump is moving in that direction, we can tell the rest of the country that Colorado is a place you can look to as a shining example on climate change and energy."
Pro-Palestine protesters interrupted the town hall at one point to call out Crow benefiting from campaign contributions by Palantir executives.
Bennito L. Kelty
Bennet on How He'd Face Trump as Governor
Bennet is one of the frontrunners for the Colorado gubernatorial race. If he wins in 2026, he'll still have two more years with Trump as president. Governor Jared Polis has come under fire for saying he'll cooperate with ICE to remove violent criminals and ordering state employees to hand over people's personal information to ICE, which a judge halted as a lawsuit plays out.
Bennet told the crowd that Colorado "as a whole has pushed back hard" against Trump, and he plans to do the same.
"I will push back hard against the Trump administration if they continue in those two years to do the kind of stuff they're doing with respect to immigration," Bennet said. "It's critically important, and that's what people in Colorado would like to see."
Pro-Palestine Protesters Interrupt Again
A protester stood and began shouting towards Crow about halfway into the town hall. She waived a flag that said "Jews Say: Stop Arming Israel." Although incoherent at first, she began singing "stop the war bombs" as she was escorted out. There were a handful of protesters waving Palestinian flags and telling attendees on their way in that Crow supports Israel's war in Gaza, as well.
In late May, a similar incident took place at another Crow and Bennet town hall. Protesters targeted Crow because executives from Palantir, a Denver-based software company that contracts with the Israeli Defense Forces, were among the top contributor to his campaign for reelection in 2024. The interruption on Thursday only lasted a few minutes. Crow did not respond or comment on Israel, Palestine or Palantir.
