Tren the Aragua Gang ‘Worse’ Than MS-13: Congressman

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Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang whose members have been linked to the takeover of entire apartment complexes in Colorado and Texas, poses a far greater threat to the people of the United States than the Salvadoran gang MS-13, according to a congressman who has been monitoring Tren de Aragua’s movements.

Democrats and Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee clashed Thursday over whether the illegal immigration crisis that has plagued the southern border since 2021 poses a serious threat to U.S. security. But one lawmaker said Tren De Aragua was also “terrorizing” people in the U.S.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district runs along 40% of the southern border, said members of Tren de Aragua and criminal illegal immigrants should be the focus of lawmakers and law enforcement.

“When I spoke to the director of ICE, he told me that there are over 10,000 known criminal aliens in the United States right now. That’s where I think we should start, and we should go from there,” Gonzales said during Thursday’s hearing. “Go after the Venezuelan gangs that are terrorizing us. They may not be on a terrorist watch list.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) holds a news conference on border security following the deaths of Jose Lerma, 67, and Isabel Lerma, 65, near Batesville, Texas, who were killed in a high-speed chase involving human smugglers, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Gonzales has been speaking out about Tren de Aragua over the past year as the gang’s violence has become increasingly public.

“I would argue that TDA makes MS-13 look like Boy Scouts,” Gonzales said, referring to the Salvadoran gang targeted by the Trump administration. “The reason I say that is because every criminal organization that comes along is always trying to outdo the last one. … I see them growing in tentacles in places way beyond the border — bigger cities, not just in Texas but all over the country, and that’s the danger. We hardly talk about TDA anymore as MS-13. They’re worse. And they’re going to get much worse.”

This summer, Tren de Aragua came to light after he violently took over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, forcing the owner to sell the property.

“At this time, the Aurora Multi-Family Properties are completely in the hands of the gangs,” according to a June 29 local police report obtained by DailyMail.

During a press conference earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said more than 100 Tren de Aragua gang members had been arrested at the Gateway Hotel in downtown El Paso on various charges, including drug trafficking and human smuggling. Part of El Paso falls within Gonzales’ congressional district.

The El Paso County district attorney has maintained that the hotel was closed last week because of extensive criminal activity, not the presence of a specific gang.

Abbott announced Monday that the state had classified Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. The declaration directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to form a new strike team consisting of SWAT teams, highway patrol officers, Texas Rangers and helicopter flight teams that could strike areas known to have Tren de Aragua present.

“Texas will use the courts to shut them down, use civil asset forfeiture to seize their property, use harsher criminal penalties to keep them in jail for extended periods of time,” Abbott said at a news conference.

One of the biggest challenges in pursuing Tren de Aragua, Gonzales said, was identifying its members. Unlike MS-13, Tren de Aragua members often don’t have the same tattoos on their bodies, and the Venezuelan government doesn’t share criminal database information with the global Interpol, the international criminal law enforcement agency that U.S. federal law enforcement can use to check information on migrants at the border.

“One of the ways we can solve this is by working with federal, state and local law enforcement and using all of their resources to pursue these people,” Gonzales said.

Other members of the committee focused on known or suspected individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list who were apprehended at the southern border under President Joe Biden.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) claimed that 382 immigrants arrested for illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico since October 2021 were on the FBI’s terrorist watch list, compared to several dozen during the entire Trump administration.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Congressman Lou Correa (D-CA) said that immigrants entering the country through the border do not pose the greatest threat to the U.S. people when it comes to terrorist activity.

“The data shows that most terrorist activities are carried out by United States citizens and not by immigrants,” Correa said.

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