Tren de Aragua: Trump puts “baby-faced” gangbangers in cross hairs

In the last weeks of his campaign, Trump is increasingly speaking about illegal immigration, an issue that appeals to a lot of voters, especially Republicans. His earlier claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing residents’ pets or taking wildlife from parks for food had gone viral.

Last month, Trump accused Harris of allowing over 21 million people mostly “terrorists” to enter the US from places “unknown,” causing “tremendous damage” to the country. “She’s trying to con the public like she did a good job at the Border when, in fact, she has destroyed the very fabric of our Nation allowing 21 Million people in from places unknown,” he said in a post on X. “When she speaks, be advised that this woman has allowed more than 21 million people into our Country, totally unvetted, and from places unknown. They are now creating criminal havoc all throughout the Country. Every State is a Border State! When she speaks, I hope everybody remembers that she has caused our cities, towns, and Country itself, tremendous damage, and only I can fix it!” he added.

Trump is now threatening a gang of immigrants with an 18th century law.

Trump’s ‘Operation Aurora’

Trump detailed his new ‘Operation Aurora’ plan during a rally in Aurora, Colorado, last week. He said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport illegal immigrants if he is elected to the White House. The rarely used law was last applied to corral immigrants of Japanese descent — mostly US citizens — in internment camps during World War II.

“Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World,” Trump said in Aurora, a town he claims has been overrun by Venezuelan gang members, a claim refuted by local officials, including Republicans. “I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” added, pledging that his administration will “get them the hell out of our country”. Aurora mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, responded to Trump’s claims, saying that concerns over Venezuelan gang activity had been exaggerated and that the city had not been “taken over” by migrant gangs.Trump’s Operation Aurora is made for the speedy removal of gang members, particularly those from Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Trump wants to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to specifically target criminal networks formed by illegal immigrants.Trump promised that if gets re-elected, his administration would deploy elite squads from ICE, Border Patrol, and federal law enforcement to track down, arrest, and deport every illegal immigrant gang member, ensuring none remain in the country. “If they try to return, they will face an automatic ten-year prison sentence without parole,” he declared. He also said he would call for “the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer”.

What is Tren de Aragua?

Tren de Aragua is a gang that originated in Venezuelan prisons. It is an international criminal organization that operates in several Latin American countries and engages in extortion, homicide, drug trafficking and smuggling of people. Over the years this gang has spread across the US. In the US, an increasing number of violent incidents are tied to its members.

Trump referenced a recent incident in Aurora where gang members armed with rifles and handguns broke into an apartment and fatally shot a man. Three suspects, all illegal immigrants, had been previously in Border Patrol custody but were released into the US. The gang has established a significant presence in Colorado, with reports of members taking control of apartment buildings in Aurora.

“Under the Maduro, and before him, Chavez regime, one of their ideas was to reduce incarceration and prison reform, by which they basically meant letting people out early. And this really gave the gang an enormous sort of manpower surge,” Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, Told Fox News.

Despite the Biden administration’s July sanctions against Tren de Aragua, which classified the gang as a ‘significant transnational criminal organization,’ Trump said more action is needed. While the administration has offered rewards up to $12 million for information on gang leaders and improved vetting, Trump claims that Operation Aurora aims for a more aggressive and direct approach to eliminate the gang’s presence in the country.

Last month, Texas designated the Venezuelan gang as a “foreign terrorist group”. Because of a political and economic crisis in Venezuela, many people from Venezuela are allowed to enter the US and apply for asylum. But Texas’s top border official, Mike Banks, argued that Venezuela “has released prisoners with one condition: you leave Venezuela and don’t come back.”

A few days ago, Trump’s running mate and Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance faced off against an ABC News host during a heated interview on Sunday, over the Venezuelan migrant gang members in Aurora.

“I’m going to stop you because I know exactly what happened. The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes, and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns,” the ABC host said, as she pressed Vance for clarification.

Vance responded with frustration, saying, “Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’ open border?” He added that Americans were fed up with the situation, pointing out the need to make communities “safe” again.

‘Baby-faced gangbangers’

“A brutal crew of baby-faced Tren de Aragua migrant gangbangers at a city-funded Manhattan shelter are pulling off armed robberies in Times Square — and they’re getting away with it,” New York Post reported a few days ago, citing officials and sources.

Nearly two dozen young migrant thugs, some as young as 11 years old, part of Tren de Aragua, who are robbing New Yorkers as well as tourists at gunpoint, a top NYPD official told The Post. But they’re managing to stay out of jail because of their ages and the Empire State’s lenient criminal justice laws, Detective Bureau Assistant Chief Jason Savino told The Post.

Curtis Sliwa, the founder of Guardian Angels, a nonprofit crime prevention organization, who has followed gang activity in the city for more than four decades, told Fox News Digital that Sliwa said these “Pee-Wee” criminals have run roughshod over New York City residents without consequence from the law. He cited robberies in Central Park South over the summer, saying that young gangsters operating out of the Watson Hotel on 57th Street would harass locals.

“They were coming back and forth, robbing, running back to the hotel, eventually to be caught, captured and released, and then to do it all over again,” he said. “And now they’re a force to be reckoned with in Times Square.”

According to Sliwa, these crimes are a rite of passage before these kids can join the gang as full members. He criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office for failing to keep arrested juvenile offenders detained – but in some cases it is out of the district attorney’s hands. New York raised the age to prosecute a child as an adult to 18 several years ago, which officials have said has made it difficult to keep juvenile offenders off the streets, as per the Fox News Digital reported.

(With inputs from TOI and agencies)