Arrest of suspected Venezuelan gang member could give Trump fodder in Wisconsin – DNyuz

The recent arrest of a suspected Venezuelan gang member in Wisconsin could give former President Donald Trump, who has long stoked fears about immigrant crime, food for thought at his upcoming rally in the state on Saturday.

Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in November’s election, will hold a rally Saturday afternoon in Mosinee, Wisconsin. It’s about a three-and-a-half-hour drive northeast of Prairie du Chien, where Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a 26-year-old Venezuelan, was detained Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on allegations of physical and sexual assault.

Prairie du Chien police wrote in a Facebook post Friday that Zarate allegedly “physically and sexually assaulted” a woman in an altercation that also left a girl injured. Zarate was arrested and taken to the Crawford County Jail. ICE was notified and placed a detainer on Zarate.

Zarate is suspected of having ties to the international gang Tren de Aragua, known for criminal activities such as murder, kidnapping, extortion and drug, arms and human trafficking.

He was booked into jail for domestic disorderly conduct, two counts of domestic violence, strangulation/suffocation, physical abuse of a child, disorderly conduct, and two counts of second-degree sexual assault. Zarate also had warrants out of Dane County, Wisconsin, for strangulation/suffocation, false imprisonment, assault, and disorderly conduct.

Trump, who has ramped up his anti-migrant rhetoric since his first presidential campaign in 2016, when he called Mexican migrants “rapists” who brought drugs and crime into the country, could use Zarate’s arrest to bolster his ongoing claims that migrants are dangerous criminals the U.S. must keep out, as his campaign has done before.

Meanwhile, the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy institute, said in a May 2024 article: “Numerous studies show that immigration is not associated with higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite… When looking specifically at the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime, researchers reach similar conclusions.”

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment by email Saturday afternoon.

On July 24, three days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez blamed Harris for the massive influx of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years.

“Border Czar Harris is presiding over the carnage at the southern border, including the rape, murder, and brutal assault of women like Rachel Morin and Laken Riley. No matter how hard they try, Kamala and her allies cannot change the reality: she is responsible for the tidal wave of migrant crime and deadly fentanyl in our country, and Americans will hold her accountable when they vote for President Trump in November,” Alvarez said in a statement.

Laken Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in Athens, Georgia, while out for a run in February. The suspect in her murder, José Antonio Ibarra, is a Venezuelan undocumented immigrant. Meanwhile, Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five from Maryland, was allegedly raped and murdered by 23-year-old undocumented migrant Victor Martinez Hernandez while out for a run in August 2023.

In 2021, Biden tasked Harris with leading the administration’s diplomacy with Central American countries — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — to address the “root causes” of migration. However, she was never responsible for border security. While illegal immigration has increased significantly under Biden, it also surged in Trump’s final months in office after hitting a low point due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The story Arrest of suspected Venezuelan gang member could challenge Trump in Wisconsin first appeared on Newsweek.