The Tren de Aragua gang started in a Venezuelan prison. Now US politics are focusing on it

News

The Tren de Aragua gang started in a Venezuelan prison. Now US politics are focusing on it

2025-03-18 09:07 Last Updated At：09:10

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Debates over U.S. President Donald Trump’s hardline migration policies are focused on the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, to some a ruthless transnational criminal organization and to others the pretext for an overhyped anti-migrant narrative.

Trump labeled the Tren de Aragua an invading force on Saturday when he invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a little-used authority from 1798 that allows the president to deport any noncitizen during wartime. Hours later, the Trump administration transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations. Flights were in the air when the ruling came down.

The Alien Enemies Act requires a president to declare the United States at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners to whom immigration or criminal laws otherwise protect. It had been used only three times — the last time to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

The Trump administration has not identified the more than 200 immigrants deported, provided any evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States.

From the heartland to major cities like New York and Chicago, the gang has been blamed for sex trafficking, drug smuggling and police shootings, as well as the exploitation of the nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants who have crossed into the U.S. in recent years. Trump told Congress this month that a Venezuelan migrant found guilty of murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus was a member of the gang.

The size of the gang is unclear as is the extent to which its actions are coordinated across state lines and national borders.

The Venezuelan gang entered U.S. political discourse after footage from a security camera surfaced on social media last summer showing heavily armed men entering an apartment in the Denver suburb of Aurora shortly before a fatal shooting outside. In response, Trump vowed to “ liberate Aurora ” from Venezuelans he falsely said were “taking over the whole town.”

The city initially downplayed concerns. But most of the apartment complex was closed under an emergency order last month after officials said they suspected Tren de Aragua members in the kidnapping and assault of two residents.

Most of the men seen in the video have been arrested, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement accusing them of gang membership.

The Tren, which means “train” in Spanish, traces its origin more than a decade ago to an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in the central state of Aragua. It has expanded in recent years as more than 7.7 million Venezuelans fled economic turmoil under President Nicolás Maduro’s rule and migrated to other parts of Latin America or the U.S.

Countries such as Peru and Colombia — all with large populations of Venezuelan migrants — have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in a region that has long had some of the highest murder rates in the world. Some of its crimes have spread panic in poor neighborhoods, where the gang extorts local businesses and illegally charges residents for “protection.”

The gang operates as a loose network in the U.S. Tattoos, which are commonly used by Central American gangs, are not required for those affiliated with the Tren, said Ronna Risquez, a Venezuelan journalist who wrote a 2023 book about the organization's origins.

Some recently deported Venezuelans have said they believe U.S. authorities wrongly judged their tattoos and then used them as an excuse to deport them.

On his first day in office, Trump took steps to designate the gang a “foreign terrorist organization” alongside several Mexican drug cartels. The Biden administration had sanctioned the gang and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three of its leaders.

Trump’s executive order Saturday accused the gang of working closely with top Maduro officials — most notably the former vice president and one-time governor of Aragua state, Tareck El Aissami, — to infiltrate migration flows, flood the U.S. with cocaine and plot against the country.

“The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States,” Trump’s executive order alleged.

Wes Tabor, who headed the Drug Enforcement Administration's office in Venezuela when the gang first came onto law enforcement radar, said Trump's decision to give the DEA and other federal agencies authority to carry out immigrant arrests is a “force multiplier” that will curtail the Tren's activities in the U.S.

Tabor said authorities need to build a robust database like they did when combating El Salvador's MS-13 containing biometric data, arrest information and intelligence from foreign law enforcement partners.

“We have to use a hammer on an ant because if we don’t, it will get out of control,” Tabor said. “We need to smash it now.”

In Venezuela, officials originally expressed bafflement at the U.S. interest in the Tren, claiming it had dismantled the gang in 2023 after retaking control of the prison where the group was born. The have also conditioned their cooperation with U.S. deportation flights on progress in other areas in the long-strained bilateral relationship.

Jorge Rodriguez, Maduro's chief negotiator with the U.S., accused Washington of spreading a false narrative about the gang, adding that most Venezuelan immigrants are decent people. He characterized the transfer of immigrants to El Salvador as kidnappings and said the government will challenge the “crimes against humanity” before the United Nations and other international bodies.

“They are not detaining them, they are kidnapping them and expelling them,” he told reporters Monday. He added that Venezuelans transferred to El Salvador cannot be held behind bars there because they have not committed any crimes in that country.

“We want them all back,” said Rodriguez, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly. “We’ll do anything we can … we’ll even speak with the devil, so that Venezuelans are sent back to their homeland.”

Goodman reported from Miami.

Why did Netanyahu end the Gaza ceasefire?

2025-03-18 22:58 Last Updated At：23:01

The wave of Israeli strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday was the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to get out of the ceasefire with Hamas that he agreed to in January.

Since the start of the war, Netanyahu has faced dueling, possibly incompatible pressures: Families of the hostages want him to cut a deal with Hamas to free them, while his far-right coalition partners want to continue the war with the aim of annihilating the militant group.

On Tuesday, he appeared to cast his lot with the latter — and U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has backed Netanyahu's decision to unilaterally walk away from the ceasefire it took credit for brokering.

Both Israel and the United States blame the renewed hostilities on Hamas' refusal to release more hostages before negotiations on ending the war proceed — which was not part of the ceasefire agreement. Israel has accused Hamas of preparing for new attacks, without providing evidence. The militant group has denied those allegations.

Hamas — which has yet to respond militarily to the Israeli strikes — has spent weeks calling for serious talks on the ceasefire agreement's second phase, which calls for the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire.

Those talks were supposed to begin in early February. Now they may never happen.

The agreement reached in January, under pressure from the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump one, called for a phased ceasefire aimed at freeing all the hostages abducted in Hamas' Oct 7, 2023, attack and ending the war it caused.

Under the first phase, which ran from Jan. 19 to March 1, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in return for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants serving life sentences for deadly attacks. Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to what remained of their homes, and there was a surge of humanitarian aid.

Each side accused the other of violations, and Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians the military accused of engaging in militant activities or entering no-go zones. But the truce held.

Still, the second phase was always seen as far more difficult.

Through months of negotiations, Netanyahu had repeatedly cast doubt on it, insisting Israel was committed to returning all the hostages and destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities — two war goals that many believe are irreconcilable.

In a TV interview last June, Netanyahu cast doubt on the possibility of a lasting ceasefire before Hamas is destroyed. "We are committed to continuing the war after a pause, in order to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas. I’m not willing to give up on that,” he said.

On Jan. 18, the eve of the ceasefire, he said "we reserve the right to return to war if necessary with the backing of the United States.”

Agreeing to a permanent ceasefire would almost certainly plunge Netanyahu into a political crisis that could end his nearly uninterrupted 15-year rule.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had threatened to leave the coalition if Netanyahu progressed to Phase 2 instead of restarting the offensive. Opposition parties have promised to support him in any agreement that brings back hostages, but his coalition would still be severely weakened, making early elections likely.

By resuming the fighting, Netanyahu ensured Smotrich’s continued support. After the strikes, the Israeli leader regained another far-right partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose party had bolted in January over the ceasefire but returned to the coalition Tuesday.

Beyond the political jockeying, Netanyahu's stated goal of annihilating Hamas would have almost certainly eluded him had he stuck with the ceasefire agreement.

Hamas survived 15 months of Israeli bombardment and ground operations that killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and destroyed much of Gaza. When the truce took hold, the militant group immediately reasserted its rule.

There’s no agreement on who should govern Gaza after the war, and even if the Western-backed Palestinian Authority were granted nominal control, Hamas would have strong influence on the ground and could rebuild its military capabilities.

For many Israelis, especially Netanyahu’s hawkish base and far-right allies, that would look like defeat. It would add to the criticism he already faces over security failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251.

After the first phase ended, Netanyahu said Israel had agreed to what he described as a new U.S. proposal in which Hamas would release half the remaining hostages in return for a seven-week extension of the truce and a vague promise to launch negotiations over a lasting ceasefire.

Hamas refused, pointing out that the new proposal was different from the one they had agreed to in January and again called for the immediate launch of talks on Phase 2.

It even offered to return an America-Israeli and the bodies of four other hostages to get the talks back on track, an offer dismissed as “psychological warfare” by Israel. Trump's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas was claiming flexibility in public while making “entirely impractical” demands.

In an attempt to impose the new arrangement on Hamas, Israel halted the import of all food, fuel and other humanitarian aid to Gaza. It later cut off electricity, affecting a vital desalination plant. Israel also said it would not withdraw from a strategic corridor on Gaza's border with Egypt, as stipulated in the agreement.

In recent days, Israel stepped up strikes across Gaza, targeting people it said were planting explosives or engaging in other militant activities. On Tuesday, at around 2 a.m., it launched one of the deadliest waves of strikes since the start of the war.

Trump took credit for brokering the ceasefire in January, but since then has appeared to sour on it. He has warned that “all hell” will break loose if Hamas does not immediately release the hostages, while saying that's a decision for Israel to make.

Trump has also proposed that Gaza's roughly 2 million Palestinians be permanently relocated so the U.S. can take ownership of Gaza and develop it as a tourist destination. Netanyahu has embraced the plan, which has been universally condemned by Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights experts, who say it would violate international law.

The White House said it was consulted ahead of Tuesday's strikes and supported Israel's decision.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war