Abbott Declares Venezuelan Gang Foreign Terrorist Organization, DPS Targets Them

By Bethany Blankley | Employee at The Center Square

(Worthy News) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday declared the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua (TDA) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Texas Department of Public Safety is aggressively targeting gang members released into the country by the Biden administration, he said.

“I will not allow them to use Texas as a base to terrorize our citizens,” Abbott said at a news conference in Houston. “Texas is a law and order state, and I will ensure that law enforcement has all the resources they need to keep our community safe.”

Tren De Aragua has been characterized as “MS13 on steroids,” Abbott said, referring to a violent gang from El Salvador. It is “the largest criminal organization in Venezuela … that has now evolved into a transnational criminal organization … that dominates the international flow of migrants from South America through Mexico to the United States.”

They are known for brutal violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking, Abbott said, linked to more than 100 law enforcement investigations across the country. TDA gang members were “involved in the brutal assault and beating” of New York Police Department officers, the killing of Georgia medical student Laken Riley and many others, he said.

“In other countries that TDA has infiltrated, history has shown that they first flood the countries with Venezuelan men of military age. Then they begin to set up a base of operations. Eventually, TDA begins a series of violent and bloody criminal activities. We have now seen the first steps of these operations in the state of Texas.”

Abbott said he would not allow that to happen during his administration and officially declared TDA a foreign terrorist organization.

“We will bring the full weight of the government to bear against the TDA,” he said. “The designation will allow Texas courts to shut down their operations through civil asset forfeiture, seize their property, and use harsher criminal penalties to keep them behind bars for longer periods of time.”

Texas DPS has launched a statewide operation to target TDA gang members, has elevated it to a Tier 1 gang, the most violent, and is developing a database to track gang members, characterizations, and arrests. No such database currently exists at the local, state, or federal level.

“TDA gangsters are like cockroaches,” said Steve McCraw, commander of the Texas DPS. “They multiply quickly, small break-ins in communities become plagues if they are not aggressively addressed. These Venezuelan thugs … are very combative. They are violent, they are certainly adaptable and they are always involved in criminal activities that start with human trafficking … of migrants.” They are involved in extortion, kidnapping, rape, assault and sex trafficking, he said. “Once they are in place, they expand their criminal activities … and they drive out other criminal gangs that are operating in that area.”

McCraw said that anti-gang centers in Texas already have ongoing criminal enterprise investigations against TDA. They are also asking federal partners to share information on the whereabouts of Venezuelan migrants. “That is very important because unfortunately, you are either a TDA member or a victim of TDA. This information would be tremendously helpful in identifying additional TDA members and their victims.”

He also said that some may find it “serious to use the terms ‘pest’ and ‘cockroaches.’ But all you have to do is interview or spend some time with the victims … and you will understand” how dangerous they are.

Abbott made the announcement after a judge ordered an El Paso hotel closed after it allegedly harbored violent illegal border crossers, including TDA gang members. Texas DPS special agents were involved in arrests and detained 100 suspected TDA gang members involved in the El Paso riots, Abbott said.

The U.S. State Department has designated the gang, which began in Tocorón Prison in Aragua, Venezuela, as a transnational criminal organization. The gang is offering up to $12 million in rewards for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions of its leaders, who are believed to be in Colombia and Venezuela.

TDA gang members have recently been moving into major cities across the country, Abbott and other law enforcement officials say, as they have been released into the U.S. after entering the country illegally due to Biden administration policies. As of fiscal year 2021 through July, they have totaled nearly 856,000, the highest number in U.S. history.

Another 115,000 Venezuelans were granted parole through a program set up by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The vast majority are single adults serving in the military, according to CBP data. The parole program is directly linked to offenders who commit violent crimes against Americans, including TDA gang members, who are arrested across the country, The Center Square reported.

In Texas, law enforcement officials have arrested more than 3,000 illegal Venezuelan border crossers; more than 200 are wanted, Abbott said.

Reprinted with permission from The Center Square.

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