Venezuelan Gang’s Path to U.S. Stokes Fear, Crime and Border Politics
The New York Times
Tren de Aragua’s emergence in New York City and elsewhere has led law enforcement officials to strategize how to stem the gang’s growth.
At the country’s southern border, U.S. Border Patrol agents have been on the lookout for members of a notorious Venezuelan gang. In the nation’s heartland, police officers from Denver to Chicago have made dozens of arrests for alleged crimes linked to the group, from retail theft to murder and prostitution.
And in New York City, police detectives have spent months interviewing informants — including confessed gang members — to identify gang leaders and gather information on robbery patterns and recruitment efforts.
The gang in question is Tren de Aragua, which sprang from a Venezuelan prison and developed into a feared criminal organization focused on sex trafficking, human smuggling and the drug trade.
Its widening presence in the United States has become a political lightning rod for Republicans, especially former President Donald J. Trump, as they seek to blame the Biden administration’s border policy for allowing criminals into the country.
Mr. Trump’s accusations about the effects of migrant-fueled crime, amplified in right-wing media, are often overstated or incorrect. Yet the gang has nonetheless emerged as a growing source of concern for law enforcement officials, who have been scrambling to study its inner workings and track its members’ movement across the country.
Federal officials were working on more than 100 investigations linked to the gang at one point this year, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Officers nationwide have made more than 50 arrests related to the gang, the official said.
