How Venezuelan gang members slip into the United States

U.S. law enforcement and immigration authorities have launched more than 100 investigations into crimes linked to suspected members of a violent Venezuelan gang, including sex trafficking in Louisiana and the point-blank shooting of two New York City police officers, according to two Departments of Homeland Security. civil servants.

The cases involving the Tren de Aragua gang show how difficult it is for U.S. border agents to check the criminal backgrounds of migrants from countries like Venezuela who refuse to help the United States.

More than 330,000 Venezuelans crossed the U.S. border last year, according to Customs and Border Protection data, and Venezuela, like Cuba, China and a handful of other countries, provides no information on its criminal history to American authorities.

Former Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair says there are limits to what the feds can know about a migrant's criminal history.NBC News

In the June 3 shooting in New York, which both officers survived, the suspected shooter was encountered by the US border patrol after crossing illegally into Texas, according to the New York police. He was later released to the United States pending an asylum hearing. It is unclear whether his alleged affiliation with Tren de Aragua was known to Venezuelan authorities. Even if it did, this information would not have been available to the Border Patrol.

As former Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair told NBC News, unless agents obtain Venezuelan migrants' criminal histories from Interpol or they already have a criminal record in the United States , we won't know who they are.

The NYPD calls them ghost criminals, with little to identify them except gang tattoos.

Their identity may be distorted; their date of birth may be distorted, said Jason Savino, NYPD deputy chief of detectives. Everything about this individual could potentially be distorted.

A wave of Venezuelans

Under the Trump administration, border agents encountered an estimated 3 million undocumented people entering the United States. Although a breakdown by country of origin is not available for those years, migrants generally came from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, all of which share the same law. application data with the United States

Under the Biden administration, the number of people trying to enter the United States has increased to 10 million to date, and the composition of the migration flow has changed.

About 800,000 Venezuelans have attempted to cross the border since 2021, with their numbers increasing from about 50,500 in fiscal year 2021 to 334,900 in fiscal year 2023. This influx has posed a unique challenge for the administration Biden.

Not only does Venezuela not share law enforcement data, it has also largely refused to take its nationals back on deportation flights. Some Venezuelans may be expelled from the United States by land under a 2023 deal. Mexico has agreed to take back up to 30,000 migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba each month. But some months later, the number of migrants from these countries exceeded 30,000.

Last fall, Venezuelans made up the majority of new arrivals in Chicago, New York and Denver, leading their Democratic mayors to raise concerns with the Biden administration about who was entering their cities and how they could support themselves without depleting local resources.

Some of the migrants who entered were affiliated with the Tren de Aragua, and the gang began surfacing in criminal investigations in at least five states, according to local law enforcement officials. Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, a law enforcement division of DHS, told NBC News it now has more than 100 active investigations involving suspected members of the Tren de Aragua.

Tattoos on the neck of a man arrested by the US Border Patrol in May. It says the man is affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, based in Venezuela. US Border Patrol

Last month, HSI dismantled an alleged sex trafficking scheme in Louisiana, where gang members allegedly forced Venezuelan migrants into prostitution to repay the smugglers who brought them to the United States.

In a federal affidavit, two of the women described how they were trafficked by three suspected gang members who entered the United States in the past year. The three suspects were intercepted by the Border Patrol after entering Texas illegally, but were later released into the United States.

The women say the alleged gang members arranged their flight from El Paso, Texas, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Once in Baton Rouge, the women were taken to a Ross clothing store to purchase clothes. They were then taken to a building where they were allegedly forced to have sex with four men a day.

The women say they were told that if they went to authorities, their families would be killed in Venezuela. One woman told HSI investigators she believed gang leaders had already killed her mother, based on conversations with her relatives at home.

One of the victims claimed the ringleader of the operation conducted similar operations involving 30 women in homes across five states, according to the criminal complaint.

All three alleged gang members are in federal custody and charged with sex trafficking.

Local law enforcement in Indiana is investigating a similar alleged sex trafficking ring with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua.

In January, Interpol released an intelligence report to member countries that warned of the gang, calling it a major threat to regional security throughout Latin America and one that has taken advantage of recent migratory flows to expand the reach of its criminal activities.

Although the group is well established in many South American countries, an Interpol spokesperson said in a statement, there is evidence that it is now expanding north into Mexico and the United States. United, where key members of the Tren de Aragua have already been identified.

How migrants are checked at the border

When a Border Patrol agent encounters a migrant at the border, they ask for any identifying information, such as a birth certificate or passport.

The agent checks any information provided against a criminal database collected from U.S. agencies and foreign countries.

Blair said it can be difficult to verify identity. Sometimes the smugglers make them give up their documents [so] they can declare a false name or nationality.

If a criminal history is discovered, an agent can place the migrant on an expedited deportation track.

Minor offenses like drunk driving do not always result in dismissal. But serious crimes like rape or assault result in prosecution or expedited deportation.

Tren de Aragua tattoos a man arrested by the Border Patrol. Sometimes law enforcement has few clues to a suspect's true identity other than gang tattoos. US Border Patrol

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said: DHS screens and screens individuals before they enter the United States. If a person poses a threat to national security or public safety, we deny him or her admission, detain him or her, remove him or her or refer him or her to other federal agencies for further review, investigation and/or prosecution, as appropriate. applicable.

Despite the lack of cooperation from countries like Venezuela, the spokesperson said, the agency can check other available sources of information on criminal behavior, including data provided by countries' law enforcement agencies. through which migrants can pass to reach the United States.

A senior DHS official said CBP's ability to screen migrants has improved over the past five years as the agency has entered into more agreements with other countries to share information on law enforcement and increased its resources for border control.

In a report released Friday, the DHS Office of Inspector General wrote that the department's technology, procedures and coordination at the border were not fully effective in screening and screening noncitizens and immigration applicants. 'asylum.

Among the watchdogs' concerns were that CBP could not access all data from federal agencies at ports of entry and that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not always conduct reviews in a timely manner positive asylum applications to verify identity and eligibility.

Until the Department resolves these challenges, DHS remains at risk of admitting dangerous individuals into the country or allowing asylum seekers who may pose significant threats to public safety and national security to continue to reside in the United States, the agency report said.

Biden administration officials say that because they have increased and improved screenings, they have expelled 4 million migrants so far, double the number expelled under former President Donald Trump. The Biden administration is prioritizing the deportation of criminals and other threats to public safety, but it is not clear how many of those deported have criminal records.

An NBC News review of public CBP data found that more migrants with identifiable criminal records attempted to cross the border under Biden than under Trump, consistent with higher overall border crossing numbers. The percentage of known criminals, however, has changed little. About 64,000 migrants arrested under Trump, or about 2 percent, had criminal histories. To date, under Biden, about 103,000 migrants have criminal records, or just over 1%.

However, there is little concrete data on the number of crimes committed by migrants once in the United States. Available data does not suggest a wave of migrant crime, despite political rhetoric and high-profile examples like crimes linked to the Tren de Aragua. Criminologists have consistently found that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans.

Ari Jimenez, now a public safety consultant, investigated migrant crime in his former job at HSI. Jimenez said that while he views the flow of migrants at the southern border as an ongoing national security crisis, he also worries about what the actions of a dangerous few could mean for other migrants.

Ninety-nine percent of people arriving at the border have a legitimate reason to seek asylum, he said. I don't want migrants trying to make a living to be victims of the 1 percent.

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