Venezuelan Gang’s Path to U.S. Stokes Fear, Crime and Border Politics
The New York Times
Tren de Aragua’s emergence in New York City and elsewhere has led law enforcement officials to strategize how to stem the gang’s growth.
At the country’s southern border, U.S. Border Patrol agents have been on the lookout for members of a notorious Venezuelan gang. In the nation’s heartland, police officers from Denver to Chicago have made dozens of arrests for alleged crimes linked to the group, from retail theft to murder and prostitution.
And in New York City, police detectives have spent months interviewing informants — including confessed gang members — to identify gang leaders and gather information on robbery patterns and recruitment efforts.
The gang in question is Tren de Aragua, which sprang from a Venezuelan prison and developed into a feared criminal organization focused on sex trafficking, human smuggling and the drug trade.
Its widening presence in the United States has become a political lightning rod for Republicans, especially former President Donald J. Trump, as they seek to blame the Biden administration’s border policy for allowing criminals into the country.
Mr. Trump’s accusations about the effects of migrant-fueled crime, amplified in right-wing media, are often overstated or incorrect. Yet the gang has nonetheless emerged as a growing source of concern for law enforcement officials, who have been scrambling to study its inner workings and track its members’ movement across the country.
Federal officials were working on more than 100 investigations linked to the gang at one point this year, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Officers nationwide have made more than 50 arrests related to the gang, the official said.
With few signs of progress on a proposed redevelopment project, one group is hoping to move the famous arena.
The administration’s warning came just after it pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from Columbia University.
Instead of speaking out on the hot-button debates of the day, more schools are making it a policy to stay silent as political pressure mounts against higher education.
In his second term, President Trump is cultivating warm relationships with G.O.P. lawmakers — and using the implicit threat of ruining them if they stray — to keep them in line behind his agenda.
Federal agencies are removing topsoil from burned areas but will not test it for contaminants. So scientists and residents are testing fire-affected properties themselves.
President Trump is planning to gut the work force while trying to turn the I.R.S. into a more political agency.
Three mayoral candidates have been accused of sexual misconduct. They deny wrongdoing. Will it be a deciding issue for Democratic voters?
President Trump has made clear he wants to keep both men and their allies within his movement, but the tensions are growing.
The authorities said there were no initial reports of damage from the quake, which struck in the hills west of Malibu.
The state and the correctional officers’ union agreed that officers should return to work Monday and that some provisions of a solitary confinement law would be put on pause.
One of the three media witnesses to the execution of Brad Sigmon in South Carolina on Friday describes what he saw.
The utility that serves New York City and Westchester County has filed a request to raise its rates to help pay for the shift to cleaner energy, sparking dismay among residents.
Clinical trials have been delayed, contracts canceled and support staff fired. With deeper cuts coming, some are warning of potential harms to veterans.