Aragua

MEXICO CITY — To help justify a sweeping deportation campaign, an extraordinary U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and unprecedented strikes on boats allegedly trafficking drugs, President Trump has repeated a mantra: Tren de Aragua.

He insists that the street gang, which was founded about a decade ago in Venezuela, is attempting an “invasion” of the United States and threatens “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump described the group as “an enemy of all humanity” and an arm of Venezuela’s authoritarian government.

According to experts who study the gang and Trump’s own intelligence officials, none of that is true.

While Tren de Aragua has been linked to cases of human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping and has expanded its footprint as Venezuela’s diaspora has spread throughout the Americas, there is little evidence that it poses a threat to the U.S.

“Tren de Aragua does not have the capacity to invade any country, especially the most powerful nation on Earth,” said Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan journalist who wrote a book about the gang. The group’s prowess, she said, had been vastly exaggerated by the Trump administration in order to rationalize the deportation of migrants, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, and perhaps even an effort to drive Venezuela’s president from power.

“It is being instrumentalized to justify political actions,” she said of the gang. “In no way does it endanger the national security of the United States.”

Before last year, few Americans had heard of Tren de Aragua.

The group formed inside a prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state then spread as nearly 8 million Venezuelans fled poverty and political repression under the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Gang members were accused of sex trafficking, drug sales, homicides and other crimes in countries including Chile, Brazil and Colombia.

As large numbers of Venezuelan migrants began entering the United States after requesting political asylum at the southern border, authorities in a handful of states tied crimes to members of the gang.

It was Trump who put the group on the map.

While campaigning for reelection last year, he appeared at an event in Aurora, Colo., where law enforcement blamed members of Tren de Aragua for several crimes, including murder. Trump stood next to large posters featuring mugshots of Venezuelan immigrants.

“Occupied America. TDA Gang Members,” they read. Banners said: “Deport Illegals Now.”

Shortly after he took office, Trump declared an “invasion” by Tren de Aragua and invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 18th century law that allows the president to deport immigrants during wartime. His administration flew 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they were housed in a notorious prison, even though few of the men had documented links to Tren de Aragua and most had no criminal records in the United States.

In recent months, Trump has again evoked the threat of Tren de Aragua to explain the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean.

In July, his administration declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro. That same month, he ordered the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American cartels that his government has labeled terrorists.

Three times in recent weeks, U.S. troops have struck boats off the coast of Venezuela that it said carried Tren de Aragua members who were trafficking drugs.

The administration offered no proof of those claims. Fourteen people have been killed.

Trump has warned that more strikes are to come. “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he said in his address to the United Nations.

While he insists the strikes are aimed at disrupting the drug trade — claiming without evidence that each boat was carrying enough drugs to kill 25,000 Americans — analysts say there is little evidence that Tren de Aragua is engaged in high-level drug trafficking, and no evidence that it is involved in the movement of fentanyl, which is produced in Mexico by chemicals imported from China. The DEA estimates that just 8% of cocaine that is trafficked into the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.

That has fueled speculation about whether the real goal may be regime change.

“Everybody is wondering about Trump’s end game,” said Irene Mia, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank focused on global security.

She said that while there are officials within the White House who appear eager to work with Venezuela, others, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are open about their desire to topple Maduro and other leftist strongmen in the region.

“We’re not going to have a cartel operating or masquerading as a government operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio told Fox News this month.

Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they don’t believe Maduro has links to Tren de Aragua.

A declassified memo produced by the Office of Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between his regime and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.: “The small size of TDA’s cells, its focus on low-skill criminal activities and its decentralized structure make it highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.”

Michael Paarlberg, a political scientist who studies Latin America at Virginia Commonwealth University, said he believes Trump is using the gang to achieve political goals — and distract from domestic controversies such as his decision to close the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Tren de Aragua, he said, is much less powerful than other gangs in Latin America. “But it has been a convenient boogeyman for the Trump administration.”

A federal appeals court ruled on September 2 that the Trump administration cannot use an 18th-century law to quickly deport suspected gang members.

Its decision largely hinged on the administration’s assertion that the Venezuela-based gang Tren de Aragua had invaded the United States.

“Applying our obligation to interpret the (Alien Enemies Act), we conclude that the findings do not support that an invasion or a predatory incursion has occurred,” the ruling said.

The conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision effectively blocks the government from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act’s fast-track process to deport people it says belong to the gang. Such an invasion or incursion is a necessary condition for the US to deport people using the law.

Here are five things to know about the Alien Enemies Act, the court’s ruling and what could come next:

How did the Trump administration use the law before the ruling?

On March 15, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which lets the president detain and deport people from a “hostile nation or government” without a hearing when the US is either at war with that country or the country has “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” an invasion or raid legally called a “predatory incursion” against the US.

That same day, the Trump administration deported more than 230 Venezuelan men to the Center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT, a maximum-security El Salvador prison. An investigation by ProPublica and other news organisations found the vast majority of the men had no criminal records. And none of the men’s names appeared in a list of alleged gang members kept by Venezuelan law enforcement and international law enforcement agency Interpol.

In July, as part of a prisoner exchange between the US and Venezuela, the men deported from the US and held in CECOT were returned to Venezuela.

Several legal challenges followed after Trump’s invocation of the law. But the September 2 appellate court’s ruling is the first to address whether Trump legally invoked it.

What did the appeals court say about an invasion?

The court said Tren de Aragua has not invaded or carried out a predatory incursion against the US.

The appellate court disagreed with Trump’s March assertion that “evidence irrefutably demonstrates that (Tren de Aragua) has invaded the United States.” To determine whether Tren de Aragua had invaded or carried out a predatory incursion, the court had to define what each of those terms meant.

“We define an invasion for purposes of the (Alien Enemies Act) as an act of war involving the entry into this country by a military force of or at least directed by another country or nation, with a hostile intent,” the ruling said.

As for a predatory incursion, the court said the term “described armed forces of some size and cohesion, engaged in something less than an invasion, whose objectives could vary widely, and are directed by a foreign government or nation”.

The court ruled that a country “encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organised force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States”.

The court said the mass migration of Venezuelan immigrants did not constitute an armed or an organised force.

Was any part of the ruling favourable to the Trump administration?

The court said it does not have the power to rule on the accuracy of the information the Trump administration presented about how closely Tren de Aragua is tied to the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolas Maduro.

But the court ruled that Tren de Aragua can be considered a government or nation for the law’s purposes, assuming Trump’s assertion is true that the group is being led by the Venezuelan government.

Nevertheless, the court ruled, there’s no invasion.

Trump’s assertion about the Maduro administration’s links to Tren de Aragua was contradicted by an intelligence community assessment.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables (Tren de Aragua) to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the National Intelligence Council said in an April report.

In May, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two National Intelligence Council officials who wrote the assessment, according to The Washington Post.

What did the court say about due process?

The appellate court said, based on available information, an updated process the government is using to inform people they will be deported under the law seemed to follow due process requirements. However, it asked the lower federal court to rule on what constitutes sufficient government notice.

In May, before the government updated its notification process, the US Supreme Court ruled in an unsigned opinion that the Trump administration hadn’t given immigrants who it said it would deport under the Alien Enemies Act enough time to exercise their due process rights.

At the time, the government had given immigrants about 24 hours’ notice that they would be deported without information about how to contest the deportation. The Supreme Court asked the appellate court to determine how much notice is necessary for the government to uphold immigrants’ constitutional due process rights.

While the case was being decided by the appellate court, the Trump administration updated the document it gives immigrants as notice that they will be deported under the law. Part of the change included giving immigrants seven days to challenge the deportation.

What will likely happen next?

The appellate court’s decision stops Alien Enemies Act deportations in the three states in its jurisdiction: Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Other courts could use the ruling as precedent in their decisions.

The Trump administration can appeal the appellate court ruling either to the full appeals court or to the US Supreme Court. The White House didn’t specify whether it would appeal or to which court.

“The authority to conduct national security operations in defence of the United States and to remove terrorists from the United States rests solely with the president,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said. “We expect to be vindicated on the merits in this case.”

Sept. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he ordered a “kinetic strike” on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States that he said killed nearly a dozen members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Trump made the announcement in a social media post referring to members of the infamous Venezuelan gang as “narcoterrorists.” The strike marks the Trump administration’s embrace of military force against drug trafficking, which was previously left to law enforcement. It is also the latest ratcheting up of hostility with Venezuela after Trump said the gang is controlled by the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro.

The early morning strike killed 11 members of the gang while they were transporting illegal narcotics in international waters, according to Trump. U.S. military personnel were not harmed, he wrote.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his post.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the strike by U.S. military forces in a post on X, writing that it occurred in the southern Caribbean.

Shortly into his second term, Trump designated the Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations,” concluding that their drug trafficking and violent activities are a destabilizing presence.

The Trump administration in August doubled its bounty to $50 million for the arrest of Maduro, for the authoritarian ruler’s alleged role in drug trafficking.

Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, on Friday acknowledged in a press briefing that the United States was building up naval forces in the Caribbean, saying it was to “combat and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, criminal cartels and these foreign terrorist organizations in our hemisphere.”

Maduro responded by placing troops on the border and calling on Venezuelans to resist an invasion by the United States, saying during a press conference Monday that the county is “facing the greatest threat our continent has seen in 100 years,” reported El Pais.

“If Venezuela was attacked, we would declare an armed struggle and a Republic in arms,” Maduro said, according to the newspaper.

July 18 (UPI) — The United States has sanctioned the head of the Tren de Aragua gang and five key leaders and affiliates as the Trump administration targets criminal organizations as part of its immigration crackdown.

Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, 42, is accused of being the leader of Tren de Aragua, and of expanding it from a Venezuelan prison gang involved in extortion and bribery to what the Treasury said was “an organization with growing influence throughout the Western Hemisphere.”

Under the previous Biden administration, the State Department issued a reward of up to $5 million for information that leads to his arrest or conviction.

Guerrero Flores, also known as Nino Guerrero, was sanctioned Thursday by the Treasury, along with Yohan Jose Romero, 47, Josue Angel Santana Pena, 30, Wilmer Jose Perez Castillo, 39, Wendy Marbelys Rios Gomez, 45, and Felix Anner Castillo Rondon, 41.

“Today’s action highlights the critical role of leaders like Nino Guerrero and his lieutenants in Tren de Aragua’s efforts to increase its destabilizing influence throughout the region,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

“The Trump administration will not allow Tren de Aragua to continue to terrorize our communities and harm innocent Americans.”

The sanctions freeze all property under the designated individual’s name and bar U.S. persons from doing business with them.

Tren de Aragua has been a target of the Trump administration, which has sought to conduct mass deportations and close the border to undocumented migrants.

On Feb. 20, the U.S. State Department designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization.

The following month, President Donald Trump tried to use the gang, under unfounded claims it was “perpetrating, attempting and threatening an invasion” of the United States, to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador — a move that has since been blocked by the courts.

The FBI on Thursday also added Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, with the State Department offering a reward of up to $3 million for information leading to his arrest of conviction.

Mosquera Serrano is accused of being a leader of Tren de Aragua and is the first member of the gang to be added to the FBI’s infamous list.

The State Department has offered up to $3m for information leading to the arrest of Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano.

The United States Treasury Department has sanctioned the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua (TDA), a Venezuelan gang that the administration of President Donald Trump has used as justification for its immigration crackdown.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano was not only sanctioned but also indicted by the Department of Justice.

According to unsealed court documents, Mosquera Serrano faces charges related to drug trafficking and terrorism. He was also added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, with a $3m reward offered for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

In the statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Tren de Aragua, under Mosquera Serrano’s leadership, of “terrorizing our communities and facilitating the flow of illicit narcotics into our country”.

It was the latest effort in the Trump administration’s campaign to crack down on criminal activity that it claims is tied to the proliferation of foreign gangs and criminal networks in the US.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua and other Latin American gangs as “foreign terrorist organisations”, a category more commonly used to describe international groups with violent political aims.

But Trump has used the threat of criminal networks based abroad to justify the use of emergency powers during his second term.

For instance, the Trump administration has claimed that Tren de Aragua is coordinating its US activities with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. That allegation was then used to justify the use of a rare wartime law: the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Claiming that the presence of groups like Tren de Aragua constituted a foreign “invasion” on US soil, Trump leveraged the Alien Enemies Act as the legal basis for pursuing the expedited deportations of alleged gang members.

More than 200 people were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where many of them remain to this day.

Those deportations have drawn widespread criticism, along with a slew of legal challenges. Critics have said that the expedited deportations violated the immigrants’ rights to due process. They also pointed out that many of the deported men did not have criminal records.

Lawyers for some of the men have argued that they appear to have been imprisoned based on their tattoos and wardrobe choices. The Department of Homeland Security, however, has disputed that allegation.

At least one top US official has acknowledged that Maduro’s government may not direct Tren de Aragua.

An April memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, obtained by news outlets like NPR and The New York Times, likewise cast doubt on the idea that Venezuela was controlling the gang’s movements in the US.

Rather, the memo said that the Maduro government likely sees Tren de Aragua as a threat.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the memo reads.

Last July, the US and Colombia offered joint multimillion-dollar rewards for information leading to the arrest of Mosquera Serrano and two other men believed to lead Tren de Aragua.

The group was also sanctioned in the same month as a transnational criminal organisation for “engaging in diverse criminal activities, such as human smuggling and trafficking, gender-based violence, money laundering, and illicit drug trafficking”, according to a Treasury Department statement.

Numerous countries in Latin America have struggled with the gang’s rapid growth, which has been linked to political assassinations and widespread human trafficking, though experts say there is little to suggest the gang has infiltrated the US.

Tren de Aragua was a little-known gang in Venezuela – until recently. US President Donald Trump’s focus on the group has thrust it into the spotlight, as hundreds of Venezuelans have been deported from the United States.