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Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang whose members have been linked to instances of entire apartment complexes being taken over in Colorado and Texas, poses a much graver threat to people in the United States than even the Salvadoran gang MS-13, according to a congressman tracking Tren de Aragua’s movements.
Democrats and Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee sparred Thursday over whether the illegal immigration crisis that has rocked the southern border since 2021 poses a serious threat to U.S. security. However, one lawmaker said Tren De Aragua was also “terrorizing” people inside the U.S.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district runs along 40% of the southern border, said members of Tren de Aragua and criminal illegal immigrants should be the focus of lawmakers and law enforcement.
“When I spoke with the director of ICE, he told me there are over 10,000 known criminal aliens loose in the United States right now. That’s in my eyes where we need to start, and then we go from there,” Gonzales said during Thursday’s hearing. “Go after the Venezuelan gangs that are terrorizing us. They may not be on a terrorist watch list.”
Gonzales has been outspoken about Tren de Aragua over the past year as the gang’s violence has crept into the public eye.
“I would argue that TDA makes MS-13 look like Boy Scouts,” said Gonzales, a reference to the Salvadoran gang that was a focus of the Trump administration. “The reason I say that is because each criminal organization that comes always tries to one-up the one before. … I see them growing in tentacles in places well beyond the border — larger cities, not only in Texas but throughout the country, and this is the danger. We’re barely now just talking about TDA as if, as if they’re similar to MS-13. They’re worse. And they’re going to get a whole lot worse.”
This summer, Tren de Aragua was exposed after violently taking over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, which forced the owner to sell the property.
“As of now, the Aurora-Multi-Family Properties are in the complete control of the Gangs,” stated a local police report dated June 29 obtained by DailyMail.
During a press conference earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said more than 100 Tren de Aragua gang members were arrested at the Gateway Hotel in downtown El Paso on various charges, including drug trafficking and human smuggling. Part of El Paso falls under Gonzales’s Congressional District.
The El Paso County attorney has maintained that the hotel was shut down last week because of extensive criminal activity, not a specific gang’s presence.
Abbott announced Monday that the state had classified Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. The declaration ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to form a new strike team composed of SWAT teams, highway patrol officers, Texas Rangers, and helicopter flight teams that could target areas known for a Tren de Aragua presence.
Yesterday, I announced Texas is launching a statewide operation to go after the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.@TxDPS will coordinate with federal and local partners through Texas Anti-Gang Centers to stop these dangerous criminals.
Our #1 priority is keeping Texans safe. pic.twitter.com/LHH9lQaLt0
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 17, 2024
“Texas will use the courts to halt their operations, use civil asset forfeiture to take their property, use enhanced criminal penalties to keep them in jail, behind bars for longer periods of time,” Abbott said at a press conference.
One of the greatest challenges in going after Tren de Aragua, Gonzales said, was identifying its members. Unlike MS-13, Tren de Aragua members often do not have the same tattoos on their bodies and the Venezuelan government does not share criminal database information with the global Interpol, the international crime police organization that U.S. federal police can check migrants’ information against at the border.
“One of the ways we fix this is we come together, federal, state, and local law enforcement, all pull their resources and go after these people,” said Gonzales.
Other members of the committee focused on known or suspected FBI terror watch list individuals apprehended at the southern border under President Joe Biden.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) touted that 382 immigrants arrested for illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico since October 2021 were on the FBI terrorist watchlist compared to a few dozen during the entire Trump administration.
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Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) said immigrants who enter the country by way of the border do not pose the most serious threat to people in the U.S. in terms of terrorist activity.
“The data shows that most terrorist activity is conducted by United States citizens and not immigrants,” said Correa.
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