CHICAGO — After serving a 20-year sentence in state prison for murder, former gangster Tyrone Muhammad returned to Chicago's rough South Side, never expecting to find Venezuelan immigrants and the Tren de Aragua crime gang moving in.
But Muhammad, 53, is on the straight and narrow and runs street patrols and violence prevention programs. Former inmate aims for social change He says Venezuelan crime gangs flooding shelters and taking over apartments is a last resort for beleaguered African-American communities, who are outraged to see government funds flowing to people they call “non-citizens.”
“We cannot allow gangs and criminals into our country through our borders and our broken walls and allow them to infiltrate our communities that are already impoverished and broken,” Muhammad told The Post last week. O BlockThis stretch along South King Drive is considered the most dangerous in the city.
“If the black gangs here get tired of the illegal and criminal activities of immigrants and foreigners, the city of Chicago will burn and the National Guard and the government will be unable to do anything as bloodshed spreads across the city. It will be blacks versus immigrants.”
According to the latest data, Chicago It spent about $500 million About more than 42,000 migrants who arrived in 2022 and beyond over the past two years.
Many are given money for rent, food stamp cards, and even cars, and some landlords are forcing out local African-Americans because they can get more government funding to house immigrants.
Some of them belong to Tren de Aragua, a former Venezuelan prison gang that is now a violent transnational crime syndicate that is heavily armed, fearless and has spread to South Side neighborhoods, Chicago sources told The Post. Traditionally dominated by hundreds of deeply rooted gangs From Gangster Disciples and Black P. Stones to Vice Lords, Latin Kings and Satan Disciples.
Outside the Standard Club migrant shelter downtown, TDA members were seen carrying gang signs and wearing their favorite uniforms (Chicago Bulls T-shirts and caps), and two Chicago Police Department officers told The Washington Post they were trying to invade a local gang's drug dealing location near a 7-Eleven.
Standard Club employees told The Washington Post that no crime was occurring at the shelter and denied the presence of Venezuelan gang members.
But Terry Newsome, a white Chicago father who became an activist, discovered that 720 police incident reports had been logged at the Standard Club alone in the previous 12 months.
He has worked with Muhammad and others interested in immigration crime to file dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests to find out what's really going on.
Newsom pointed to the Post's police reports showing sex trafficking, child pornography, drugs, carjackings, weapons and excessive domestic violence occurring at just four downtown shelters.
A TDA gang member was released by a Chicago judge despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement's request to detain him, just a month before he was indicted in a deadly jewelry store robbery in Denver, not far from Aurora, Colorado, where gang members have reportedly taken over an apartment building.
Earlier this month, Chicago police were called to the South Side building. There, 32 armed Venezuelan migrants were said to be displaying their weapons.
Many residents of the rough South Side interviewed by The Washington Post over the course of a week — including younger, more hard-core gang members whom older gang members refer to as “millennials” — said they were angry and frustrated at being ignored by city officials who give preferential treatment to immigrants.
“The real problem is America has allowed gangs into the country,” said David, a young member of the Gangster Disciples, whose group stands on a busy drug-trafficking street near Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“These are gangs that are considered ex-terrorists. They've let terrorists into our country!” he shouted angrily to the Post.
“There's a lot going on (among immigrant gangs) that no one's hearing about,” said Zach Massey, 27, a street leader who was first imprisoned in 2015 and only recently released.
“They're going around in our territory, robbing people, but they're not getting arrested like we are. I actually talked to one person on a translation app, and he told me all about what he's been doing, how they've helped him get a car, an apartment, an (EBT) card, everything. They're giving them thousands of dollars, and we only get like $400 a month. And they don't even have social security numbers!”
Black P. Stone member Corey Rogers drove a Post reporter through the area, pointing out several locations where Venezuelan gangs were “flying the flag,” or brandishing guns, and showed the reporter gang WhatsApp threads in which gang members texted threatening turf wars with Venezuelans.
“What worries me is that Venezuelans are united,” Rogers said. “Black gangs are too divided, and they're taking each other down.”
Charles Harris, 55, a friend of Ms. Rogers' and her boss at what they called “the organization,” gestured to a spot two blocks away from where he was standing in the Woodlawn neighborhood.
“There's still violence over there, but it's calmed down a lot,” Harris said, pointing westward. “You used to go over there and get shot. It's calmed down a lot. The last thing we need are Venezuelans.”
Muhammad, a former enforcer for Gangster Disciples street gang leader Larry Hoover, formed Ex-Cons for Trump because he felt the Democratic Party had failed inner-city black people for too long.
“It's not so much about Trump himself, it's about the Democrats failing us,” he said. “Wealthy black people may like Kamala Harris, but she's not going to do us any favors.”
Pastor Corey Brooks, 55, founder of New Beginnings Church and outreach group Project Hood He was in O Block more than 20 years ago and said his conservatism was born out of failed Democratic policies and being ignored for financial support by Black Lives Matter when he tried to raise money for a new community center.
“Chicago is a Democratic city and Illinois is a Democratic state, but people are waking up,” Brooks told The Post at his church last week. “It's not about people, it's about policies. I've seen with my own eyes what's going on when it comes to immigrant criminal gangs, and it's very disturbing.”
Brooks saw this firsthand a few months ago when she learned about a young Venezuelan migrant who had to flee the apartment he was sharing with other migrants after it turned out to be run by a criminal organization.
“I'm a Republican and a conservative, so I'm going to be accused of fear-mongering, but I know what I saw,” Brooks told the Post.
“Venezuelan gangs had taken over his apartment and were conducting illegal activities. I know what crimes were being committed and how his life was in danger.”
The 27-year-old spoke to The Washington Post, but did not want to give his name or go on camera, saying he fears for his life.
“If they find out I'm talking to anyone, they'll take the lives of my family with one bullet,” he said in Spanish. “They're bad people.”
Gang members aren't the only ones who resent the arrival of immigrants and the drain on money that locals say benefits them.
Octavia Mitchell, 52, Soothing the soul She joined the group after losing her son, Isael Jackson, to gun violence in 2010. Last year, she lost her 21-year-old nephew, Avante Holmes, to a shooting on the South Side.
412 people will be murdered in Chicago by 2024 But she said less, not more, is being done to curb black-on-black violence.
“I can't reach anyone at city hall or anywhere who cares about me,” Mitchell said. “They care about immigrants, but they don't care about people like us who have roots here. We matter, you know?”
The Chicago mayor's office did not respond to an email from The Washington Post.
