EL PASO, Texas – Hector Gonzalez goals of sometime changing into a barber in New York Metropolis.
The 23-year-old Venezuelan favors black baseball caps, worn backward, and tattoos on his left forearm.
On a latest afternoon, these traits – his age, the backward cap, the tattoos – made him a goal of a number of passing El Paso Cops, who ordered Gonzalez and several other different younger Venezuelan migrants to face and face a wall on a downtown avenue nook on this border metropolis. The police, some sporting balaclavas over their faces, checked the boys’s pockets and backpacks, made them elevate their shirts and clarify their tattoos, some which depicted a rose, cube or barbed wire.
The officers stated they have been looking for a suspect in a stabbing, however they have been additionally looking out for members of Tren de Aragua – A harmful Venezuelan avenue gang a few of whose members have slipped into the USA amid hundreds of different migrants lately. The gang has turn out to be a flashpoint within the U.S. presidential election.
Former president Donald Trump thrust the group and the Biden-Harris administration’s border insurance policies into the highlight in September when he falsely claimed throughout a presidential debate that members of the Venezuelan avenue gang Tren de Aragua had “taken over” U.S. cities, comparable to Aurora, Colorado.
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The specter of Tren de Aragua, recognized to regulation enforcement by the shorthand “TdA,” has been repeatedly amplified throughout conservative discuss exhibits and rallies, with politicos and pundits characterizing them as murderous thugs rampaging by U.S. cities. However regulation enforcement officers throughout the nation describe a a lot completely different group – one making an attempt to ascertain a foothold within the U.S., whose ranks are skinny and whose actions pale compared to the violence and criminality of extra established felony organizations. Tren de Aragua is greatest recognized for petty crimes, comparable to retail theft, and for focusing on different Venezuelan migrants.
USA TODAY spoke with native and state regulation enforcement in Texas, Colorado and New York in addition to federal officers and located that – regardless of claims of “hundreds” of TdA gang members – authorities have arrested fewer than 135 confirmed gang members, in line with interviews and police studies.
Federal authorities say that, in June, they started re-screening Venezuelan migrants who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The reassessments turned up some 600 folks with suspected ties to Tren de Aragua – a bunch that included victims, associates, witnesses to crimes and others. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested fewer than 30 with gang connections – two on felony fees and the remainder on immigration infractions, in line with DHS. The company has referred one other 100 folks to an FBI “watch record” for additional evaluate.
Individually, in line with DHS, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico border 27 folks in fiscal 2024 and 41 folks in fiscal 2023 with Tren de Aragua gang affiliation.
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Greater than 760,000 Venezuelans have arrived on the Southwest border searching for asylum from political repression and runaway violence of their homeland since 2021, in line with U.S. Customs and Border Safety statistics.
Tren de Aragua remains to be looking for their identification, stated Jason Savino, an assistant chief within the New York Police Division’s detective bureau.
“They’re scattered,” he stated. “They haven’t formulated. And each time they do, we’ve locked them up.”
On the El Paso avenue nook, police questioned Gonzalez briefly then let him go.
He watched because the officers cuffed two of the opposite Venezuelan males, earlier than the police automotive disappeared into the space.
“You’ll be able to’t chill out,” Gonzalez stated. “Simply because you have got tattoos they need to discriminate towards you. They need to say you’re a felony.”
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Six males, some sporting hoodies, others carrying pistols and one other carrying what gave the impression to be an assault rifle, walked up the steps of an residence constructing. The unique submit claimed the boys have been Tren de Aragua gang members who had taken over the constructing in Aurora, a suburb of Denver.
Tren de Aragua grew out of the jail system within the central state of Aragua in Venezuela and have become one of the crucial violent teams in that nation, specializing in extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking, in line with the U.S. Treasury Division. In July, the division sanctioned the group, labeling it a “vital transnational felony group.”
In accordance with Transparencia Venezuela, the native arm of watchdog group Transparency Worldwide, the organization boasts 4,000 members throughout seven international locations in Central and South America. Regulation enforcement officers across the nation have warned they’ve arrested members of Tren de Aragua in reference to crimes together with brazen retail thefts, moped muggings in New York Metropolis and a jewelry heist in Denver.
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In comparison with different gangs tied to migrant waves, Tren de Aragua is small. For example, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, which originated in Los Angeles within the Nineteen Eighties and unfold by Central America, has 50,000 to 70,000 members internationally. MS-13’s highest rating leaders have been charged with terrorism offenses within the U.S.
“Nationally, you’re not taking a look at a gang that’s on par with Mara Salvatrucha or Mexican Mafia,” stated Peter Hermansen, a retired former director of Border Patrol’s Particular Operations Group. “You’re seeing them tackle opportunistic crime, the place they’re making an attempt to take over residence complexes, acquire cash, creating points in these communities.”
Lower than a month after the video emerged, the scene on the Edge at Lowry residence advanced in Aurora was serene. Three-story purple brick buildings stand like sentries and slides and swings adorned the entrance yards of close by properties. South of the advanced, kids performed soccer on college fields whereas others swung on monkey bars.
Aurora police have arrested one man and have warrants outstanding for the other five for his or her position within the incident proven within the viral video. They face felony fees of first-degree housebreaking and menacing with a firearm. Not one of the males have been linked to Tren de Aragua but, police stated.
Others have. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain advised USA TODAY officers have recognized 10 folks believed to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua, 9 of which have been arrested.
Confirming gang affiliation is a problem – each for Border Patrol and native and state regulation enforcement – on condition that the U.S. suspended its diplomatic relationship with Venezuela in 2019 and the 2 international locations don’t share data.
Chamberlain stated the town is working with Homeland Safety officers and different federal companies to focus on suspected members however downplayed allegations that his metropolis is overrun by the Tren de Aragua.
“The town just isn’t taken over by gangs,” Chamberlain stated. “Like another metropolitan space, there are gangs which can be in Aurora that have been right here earlier than the Venezuelans have been right here, and it is one thing that we’re addressing and coping with.”
Scooter robberies and Michael Jordan tattoos
In New York, detectives have recorded an alarming rise in retail thefts and “scooter robberies” – the place assailants on rushing mopeds snatch cellphones and purses from unsuspecting pedestrians – that they attribute to Tren de Aragua.
The gang members started arriving two years in the past, across the similar time scores of Venezuelan migrants from the Texas-Mexico border aboard constitution buses ordered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, stated Savino, the detective bureau’s assistant chief.
The rise in petty thefts and armed robberies in New York was so alarming that the police division deployed detectives to Colombia, which neighbors Venezuela, to be taught extra in regards to the gang’s ways, Savino stated.
“We’ve to know our enemy,” he stated.
Although a regarding development, Savino stated Tren de Aragua has been unable to prepare sufficient to pose a real risk, particularly in comparison with different gangs working in New York. He stated the group has been pinned to lower than 5 violent crimes the previous two years.
“They’re driving retail theft and scooter crime,” he stated. “Nevertheless, relating to violence, they pale compared.”
In Texas, the state Division of Public Security has compiled a database to trace suspected gang members, typically recognized by their tattoos or different markers, stated Lt. Chris Olivarez, an company spokesman.
That is completely different from the state’s Texas Gang Intelligence Database known as TxGANG, which follows related standards to the FBI’s gang unit.
Earlier this 12 months, Border Patrol hosted a safety briefing for El Paso-area shelter administrators, the place intel specialists warned about Tren de Aragua’s attain within the U.S., stated Michael DeBruhl, director of the Sacred Coronary heart Catholic Church migrant shelter in El Paso and a veteran former Border Patrol agent.
The brokers shared easy methods to establish gang members – together with recognizing tattoos of locomotive trains or a five-point crown. Some TdA members have tattoos of Michael Jordan or the NBA legend’s #23 jersey quantity, supposedly for the 23 de Enero neighborhood, one among Caracas’ most harmful slums.
Olivarez stated he couldn’t verify what number of Tren de Aragua members are listed within the Texas database or whether or not any gang members traveled from Texas to New York, Chicago or Denver amid hundreds of different Venezuelan migrants aboard constitution buses.
Abbott’s Operation Lone Star has bused more than 119,000 migrants to cities throughout the nation since 2022, together with greater than 19,000 to Denver and practically 50,000 to New York Metropolis.
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Texas Governor: El Paso ‘floor zero’ for Venezuelan gang
As studies of Tren de Aragua exercise surfaced throughout the nation, nationwide consideration homed in on El Paso – the border metropolis by which many regulation enforcement and native officers consider the group entered the U.S.
In early September, El Paso County Legal professional Christina Sanchez filed a lawsuit towards the homeowners of the Gateway Resort in central El Paso to attempt to shut it down, claiming a litany of public security issues and different points. The lawsuit alleged the lodge, utilized by low-income residents and migrants, had additionally drawn members of Tren de Aragua.
Every week later, Abbott declared the gang a “overseas terrorist group” and ordered state regulation enforcement to pursue its members. At a press convention saying the transfer, Abbott and Texas Division of Public Security Director Steven McCraw known as El Paso “floor zero” and “infested” with felony exercise.
“All it’s a must to do is spend time with some migrant victims which can be right here on this nation,” McCraw stated. “You’ll perceive the governor has not overstated the problem.”
El Paso metropolis and county officers pushed again.
Sanchez additionally clarified her preliminary lawsuit: “I need to be clear that at no time did we allege in our lawsuit that the lodge was taken over by any gang or group of people,” she stated in a press release.
Vanessa Tena, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Workplace, which runs the jail, stated sheriff’s deputies hadn’t arrested anybody they consider is affiliated with the gang. She stated the gang might have used El Paso to enter the U.S. however had doubtless moved on to different cities.
“We consider that only a few have stayed in El Paso, nevertheless they’re very strategic in that they don’t seem to be freely figuring out themselves as members,” she stated in a press release.”
No gang presence at migrant shelters
On a latest afternoon on the now-shuttered Sacred Coronary heart shelter in central El Paso 5 blocks from the border, about 20 migrant households sat at tables inside a cavernous former basketball fitness center, filling out work allow varieties or scrolling by telephones to attach with relations in different cities.
The scant scene was a far cry from earlier this 12 months, when lots of of migrants crowded each inch of the fitness center, stated DeBruhl, the shelter’s director. More durable enforcement by Mexico and Panama, and Biden’s order proscribing entry to asylum, had pushed the numbers down.
From December 2022 to October 2024, Sacred Coronary heart sheltered or aided greater than 30,000 migrants, the overwhelming majority of them from Venezuela, stated DeBruhl, of the Sacred Coronary heart Catholic Church. He by no means detected a Tren de Aragua member amongst them – nor have any of the migrants he serviced ever complained of being focused by the group.
“We’ve not had any proof in any respect of Tren de Aragua members in our shelter,” DeBruhl stated.
Members of Tren de Aragua couldn’t simply muscle their manner into cities like El Paso or Chicago that have already got entrenched gangs with profitable felony operations, stated Mike Tapia, affiliate professor of felony justice at Texas A&M College-Commerce and writer of “Gangs of the El Paso-Juarez Borderland: A Historical past.“
Gangs in El Paso, comparable to Barrio Azteca, for instance, work carefully with Mexican cartels throughout the river in Ciudad Juárez for smuggling folks and medicines, he stated. The sudden look of a Venezuelan gang making an attempt to carve into that motion would spark a bloody turf conflict, which hasn’t occurred, Tapia stated.
Tapia known as Abbott’s warnings of the gang’s unfold in Texas “hyperbolic.”
“There’s simply not sufficient of that pie to go round,” he stated.
DeBruhl added: “We simply have to make sure – because the migrant assist group or the regulation enforcement group or the native authorities – that we’re coping with details and never with innuendo and rumors. That’s what’s actually essential.”
‘We’re not all the identical’
Throughout the road from his shelter, the place Hector Gonzalez received questioned, the police unit was gone and a handful of younger Venezuelans stood beneath the shade of a thin tree, swapping tales about their journey to the U.S.
Emerson Linares, who was one of many males handcuffed by El Paso Police, pushed off in a police cruiser and later launched, stated he realized his tattoos – together with one on his face and several other crawling up each arms – made him a goal.
An evil-looking nun smoking a cigarette on one arm and a stoned rooster carrying a surfboard on the opposite have been “dumb, impulsive issues I did,” stated the 23-year-old former graphic designer. “They don’t imply something.”
Subsequent to him, Gonzalez stated he left Venezuela in 2019 after the road violence grew to become overwhelming. He lived in Colombia for a number of years then crossed the U.S.-Mexico border 5 months in the past and turned himself in to Border Patrol brokers.
He was screened, launched and given a court docket date in 2028.
Gonzalez stated he’s saving as much as make his option to New York. Clippers, a razor and a chair are all he must get going as a barber once more, as he did in Venezuela.
For now, he was mired on this border city, counting on instincts to see him by. His tenet was summed up on a tattoo stretching throughout his left forearm.
In cursive writing, it stated merely: “LOVE.”
Rick Jervis and Lauren Villagran reported from El Paso, Texas. Ignacio Calderon’s dispatch is from Aurora, Colorado.
Contributing: Tony Plohetski from The Austin-American Statesman
(This story has been up to date to incorporate a photograph gallery)
( headline and story edited by our workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
