At one time, Americans had to worry about Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) the violent street gang that originated in LA back in the early ’80s, in the wake of the civil war in El Salvador. That worry still exists; MS-13 is one of the largest and most violent Hispanic gangs active in the United States, with an estimated 8,000-10,000 members spread around the country.

Now there’s another threat—to American law enforcement.

The leadership of the even more violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua—which few Americans have probably heard of as yet—has reportedly authorized its members to murder police officers. More precisely, it appears the gang intends to deliberately target police in order to terrorize everyone else.

Because if its not safe when cops are around, no one’s safe.

“The Albuquerque New Mexico Police Department (APD) has released this officer safety bulletin to notify law enforcement of information regarding the Tren De Aragua criminal organization and reports that TDA members in Denver have been given a ‘green light’ to fire on or attack law enforcement,” reads a bulletin issued by the Colorado Information Analysis Center that was shared with Fox Digital News.

A memo from Homeland Security confirms the threat, citing credible human sources” from Colorado. Thousands of undocumented Venezuelans are already in Denver and they are spreading out to other American cities, including New York.

Last week, Tren De Aragua was officially designated a “transnational criminal organization” by the federal government. It is said to be  “establishing operations” in several major American cities and likely to spread to others soon if not stopped.

According to an article that appeared in the New York Post recently, “The gang is already tied to hundreds of crimes” in New York City, “including the shootings of two NYPD cops who were trying to arrest one of its members in June.”

Officers Richard Yarusso and Christopher Abreu were shot by 19-year-old Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, a suspected TDA member, after the officers attempted to pull Mata over for riding a scooter the wrong way down a one-way street.

According to CBS News and court documents, “Mata, who lived in a migrant shelter and remains in custody at Bellevue Hospital, told detectives he’s a member of a Venezuelan gang and that guns are smuggled into shelters through food delivery packages to avoid metal detectors.”

Mata also said, “it’s common practice for TDA members to shoot at police officers in Venezuela,” so doing it here is not escalation.

It’s policy. 

Killing cops as policy is something that not even the notoriously dangerous MS-13 gang ever sanctioned. Individual members may have attacked police on their own initiative, but it has never been the policy of that gang.

It appears it may be exactly that as regards this gang—which has become another dangerous presence within the United States because the federal government, under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, has had a de facto open borders policy in effect for the past almost four years, all but inviting TDA gang members to enter the country.

The members of this gang are also harder to keep track of once they’re in this country because, unlike members of MS-13, who are often covered with tattoos that identify them as members of the gang, the members of Tren De Aragua (which translates as The Aragua Train, referencing the Aragua region in Venezuela)  pose as “asylum” seekers and avoid the tattoos that would identify them as members of TDA.

According to the latest-available federal data, the Border Patrol “only began tracking the group last year and has recorded catching (just) 70 of its members.”

But thousands are almost certainly here. Maybe tens of thousands.

Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens says TDA constitutes a “serious threat”—but that’s been established already. The gang is known to be involved in kidnapping, drug distribution, and sex trafficking, including child sex trafficking—as well as the murder of Americans like 22-year-old Laken Riley, the University of Georgia nursing student whose life was taken—after she was sexually assaulted—by Jose Ibarra, a “migrant” from Venezuela, as ABC News referred to him.

In fact, Ibarra is an illegal alien from Venezuela who had no business being in America. Had “Border Czar” Kamala Harris performed her constitutionally obligatory duty to protect the border, it is likely Laken Riley would never have been attacked and murdered by Ibarra.

Now it appears that Ibarra’s bother has “ties” to Tren de Aragua, which means Ibarra may have as well.

“This whole (open) border situation over the last three and a half years has allowed countless criminals to be allowed into the United States, says John Fabbricatore, who is a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field director currently vying to win a term as a congressman from the sixth district of Colorado. “We’re seeing an uptick in crime, especially in illegal immigrant crime throughout the U.S. and sanctuary cities are just magnetizing it.”

So-called “sanctuary cities” is the term given by liberal politicians to what might as well be considered law enforcement-free zones, where illegality is encouraged and even rewarded—at the expense of the American citizens who are obliged to pay for it and not just in terms of their tax dollars. They also pay for it the same way Laken Riley—and her family—did.

And now it appears that American law enforcement may end up paying the same price.

“We could potentially see police officers being shot at by these gang members because they do not fear” police, Fabbricatore warns.

And if they do not fear the police, who do they fear?

That question hasn’t yet been asked—but it needs to be answered.

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Michael A. Letts, Founder, President, and CEO of In-Vest USA, a national grassroots non-profit organization that is helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs.