A new report released by the Heritage Foundation provides the first comprehensive English-language report on the Torren de Aragua (TdA), a large Venezuelan gang whose brutal exploits in the United States have made national headlines. Provided.
What's the verdict? The threat America faces from Torren de Aragua is much more serious than many realize, said report author Joseph Humia.
The report, titled “Derailing Torren de Aragua,” is a starting point for understanding a violent criminal organization “honed and perfected within the prison walls of Venezuela and then exported throughout the Western Hemisphere.” is being provided to U.S. leaders.
Humire told FOX News Digital that he hopes the report will be a starting point for the incoming Trump administration on how to respond to and dismantle TdA before it continues to spread its roots further within U.S. borders. He said he is doing so.
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Immigrants entering the United States in Lukeville, Arizona. (Fox News)
“TdA is unique among criminal organizations because it has an ideology associated with it,” Humire said in the report. “TdA is already present in America today, and solving this problem requires a proper understanding of TdA to detect organized crime's motivations, tactics, and overall strategy.”
What is Torren de Aragua?
Humire, director of the Center for Safe and Free Societies and a Heritage Foundation fellow, told Fox News Digital that the first thing to understand about Torren de Aragua is that it's much more than a gang. he said. Rather, it is a coordinated international terrorist campaign supported by some of America's worst enemies to cause chaos and destabilize the United States.
Torren de Aragua, which means “Train from Aragua,” was born out of a Venezuelan prison more than a decade ago, following reports that members of the group were holding an entire apartment hostage in a suburb of Aurora, Colorado. , which suddenly rose to the national consciousness in 2023. of Denver.
Since then, reports of violent crimes committed by Torren de Aragua members have spread like wildfire, including high-profile cases involving Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, and Jocelyn Nangaray, a 12-year-old from Houston. This includes murder cases.
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Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, was recently convicted of murdering nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia.
American media reports and politicians have characterized the Torren de Aragua as simply a group of thugs and criminals. However, Humire's report emphasizes that Torren de Aragua is a state-sponsored transnational criminal organization sponsored by and embedded in Venezuela's socialist government.
Humire said that instead of working to detect and deter criminals and terrorism, key aspects of the Venezuelan government are helping to facilitate TdA's activities not only within Venezuela but throughout the Western Hemisphere.
He said that with the support of the Venezuelan government, TdA has a deliberate “ideology of invasion” and that most gangs and transnational criminal organizations gain territorial control of neighborhoods and regions in weeks, rather than a process that takes years. He said he is trying to achieve this.
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President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela (AP Photo/Matthias Delacroix/File)
Why is Torren de Aragua spreading across the United States?
Many comparisons have been made between Torren de Aragua and El Salvador's gang La Mala Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13), but TdA has expanded much more rapidly, which is probably why This is due to its unique origins and state sponsorship in Venezuela, Umire said.
He also claimed that the rapid expansion of TdA in the United States is “a direct result of the Biden-Harris administration's failed immigration policies and lack of border security.”
Biden's Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parole programs, and his earlier Venezuelan parole program, would often force Venezuelan immigrants into the country en masse with little or no screening. It happened. Thanks to these policies, the Venezuelan population in the United States has grown by 520.8% or nearly 1 million people, making them the fastest growing population in the United States since 2021.
As a result, although TdA entered the United States for the first time, it now has a presence in more than 30 major U.S. cities and, as the report notes, at least 100 federal investigations involving the group are ongoing. “Most of the laws in the United States have been cracked down.'' The enforcement community was surprised. ”
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Monday that the state intends to target Venezuelan gangs that are notorious for brutal violence and murder and threaten the safety of Texans. (X/@GregAbbott_TX)
How to “derail” a train
Humia said that during the first 100 days of his new administration, President Trump will accelerate Texas' efforts to combat gangs by fulfilling his promise to launch Operation Aurora to take a “whole-of-government approach.” He said we should emulate him. Leverage federal resources from the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the military to complement state-led law enforcement efforts and partner with allies in Latin America to attack TdA from any country. angle.
“TdA's key leaders are not believed to have arrived in the United States yet, meaning time is of the essence before precautions can be taken,” the report said.
Humire said President Trump's Department of Homeland Security should immediately recognize TdA as a transnational terrorist organization and mark Venezuelan immigrants as “aliens of special interest.” The designation would reverse the Biden administration's policy of waving off Venezuelan immigrants and instead allow U.S. immigration authorities to better screen them.
While this may sound controversial, Humire said it not only better protects inland American citizens, but also legitimizes asylum seekers fleeing Venezuela. .
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Venezuelan immigrant Luis Sanchez asked the Texas National Guard to take his family through razor wire after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico at Eagle Pass on September 27, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)
“This is really aimed at protecting Venezuelan immigrants, just because you're from those countries,” he said. “Most Venezuelan immigrants would actually agree to this because they don't want to be invaded by Torren de Aragua, and all Venezuelan immigrants would agree with this because they don't want to be invaded by Torren de Aragua, and all Venezuelan immigrants would agree to this because they don't want to be invaded by Torren de Aragua I know.”
What would Trump do?
Humire said there are already positive signs from the Trump transition that the president-elect is serious about his promise to dismantle the TdA.
“I think appointing a border czar early in the transition process was a clear signal that this is one of the new Trump administration's top priorities, if not its top priorities,” he said. said. “And Border Czar-appointed Tom Homan is well aware of this gang, Torren de Aragua, and the transnational criminal organizations that undermine American sovereignty.”
donald trump (Brandon Bell/Pool/File via AP)
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He also noted that some of President Trump's major cabinet appointments, such as the appointment of Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Rep. Michael Walz as national security adviser, have led to government officials emphasizing the importance of TdA. This is evidence of a whole-of-government approach that recognizes the “If we don’t nip it in the bud soon, it can become a big problem.”
“This is something the Biden administration could have done. They had all the tools they needed to do it, but they missed a key element: political will.” “Therefore, the political will of the new administration to address this issue is very high, from the president down to his appointees.”
