The presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in the U.S. has made recent headlines and been given as a reason for deportations by the Trump administration.
The gang, known as “TdA” for short, gained notoriety in the U.S. during the 2024 presidential election, when now-President Donald Trump said the gang was “taking over” the city of Aurora, Colorado in a debate against former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Las week, Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act as the basis for the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan citizens under suspicion of their membership with the gang.
Following the invocation of the act, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants were deported to El Salvador and Honduras.
The deportations were done in defiance of an order issued by Chief U.S. Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., who temporarily blocked the deportation of five Venezuelans who challenged Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and denied being members of Tren de Aragua.
The migrants were sent to a high-security prison in El Salvador known as the Center for Terrorism Confinement, which has been accused of human rights violations.
Here’s what you need to know about Tren de Aragua.
What is Tren de Aragua?
According to a July 2024 reward for information on Hector Guerrero Flores from the U.S. State Department, Tren de Aragua started as a prison gang in Venezuela and has since developed into a “transnational criminal organization” led by Guerrero Flores.
The State Department says Guerrero Flores spent many years in a Venezuelan prison where he expanded the influence of the gang. During that process, the gang has been able to gain control of gold mines in the state of Bolivar as well as drug corridors on the Caribbean coast and some clandestine border crossings between Venezuela and neighboring Colombia, according to the State Department.
Besides Venezuela, the gang has also been reported to have operations in Chile, Peru and the U.S.
Trump declares Tren de Aragua a ‘terrorist organization’
On his first day back in office, Trump signed a presidential action designating the Tren de Aragua as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” the presidential action reads.
The Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, was also included in the list of organizations deemed as terrorists.
Then, this month, the Trump administration moved to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act after saying Tren de Aragua was an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the U.S.
Families say deportees were not in gang
The family members of some of the deportees have said that there is no connection between them and the gang.
Solanyer Sarabia told Reuters that her 19-year-old brother, Anyelo, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Texas for a tattoo that they said linked him to the gang. But, she said the tattoo depicted a rose and that he had gotten it in a tattoo parlor in Dallas.
22-year-old Johanny Sanchez also told Reuters that her husband, 26-year-old Franco Caraballo, was set to be deported to Venezuela but suspects that he was in the group of people sent to El Salvador.
Sanchez said her husband had multiple tattoos, including roses, a clock with his daughter’s birth time, a lion and a shaving razor, and said he has never been a member of Tren de Aragua.
But despite these claims, ICE did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Contributing: Reuters; Savannah Kuchar and Bart Jansen, USA TODAY
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is Tren de Aragua? What to know about the Venezuelan gang
