The Trump administration made violent transnational organizations, including the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, an early target of the government’s aggressive crack down on crime and immigration.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made more than 12,000 gang-related administrative arrests. This includes 1,965 MS-13 affiliates and 1,553 TdA affiliates, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced this week.
Federal investigators have arrested 1,296 Tren de Aragua gang members between Jan. 20, 2025, and Oct. 8, 2026, and charged nearly 350 Tren de Aragua members and associates with federal crimes, according to Homeland Security Task Force data reported by the Washington Examiner.
The Venezuelan prison gang has been around for a decade, spreading across Venezuela into South America and eventually the United States.
During President Joe Biden’s tenure, 700,000 immigrants from Venezuela were encountered at the southern border through September 2024, the Examiner reported.
Trump highlighted several cases of violent crime committed by illegal TdA members during his reelection campaign, including the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley in February 2024.
A month after Trump returned to the White House, in February 2025, the U.S. Department of State designated Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cártel de Sinaloa and several other Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
In an effort to dismantle them, the Trump administration launched Homeland Security Task Forces in 2025 to prosecute and remove criminal rings and terrorist organizations embedded in U.S. communities, particularly Tren de Aragua.
“President Trump created the Homeland Security Task Force to eradicate gangs, cartels, and transnational criminal organizations who entered the United States, and operated with impunity, as a result of the Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told the Examiner.
This week, DHS highlighted several TdA members arrested in Georgia in recent months. They committed a variety of violent crimes, including armed robbery, aggravated assault, and weapons and drug offenses.
Although it’s unknown how many TdA members are in the United States, they joined the millions of migrants who illegally entered the country during the Biden administration’s open border disaster.
Lax vetting, bogus asylum claims and catch-and-release policies made it easy for the gang’s members to hide within the migrant population.
U.S. Border Patrol agents could only screen illegal immigrants in custody against available information. Since Venezuela does not share in-country crime data with the U.S., it was easy for convicted criminals and gang members to escape detection.
Venezuela also refused to accept repatriated citizens from the U.S., so border agents released most of them into the country.
“The four long years of Biden’s open borders allowed some of the worst gang members to enter our country and terrorize our communities,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said. “The Trump Administration has been working tirelessly to right these wrongs and get these public safety threats off our streets.”
Described as a “brutal criminal group” by the State Department, TdA members are known for extreme violence including murder, kidnappings, extortion and human and sex trafficking.
Homeland Security Task Forces have encountered TdA gang members in almost every state, according to federal officials.
Former Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district was along 800 miles of the southern border, said the group was known “to rape children, murder, and commit nearly every other crime under the sun,” the Washington Examiner reported.
The TdA-linked crimes began as Biden opened the border and, despite appearing unrelated, extended deep into the U.S.
Two New York police officers were shot in the line of duty by suspected Tren de Aragua gang members in September 2021. Venezuelan national Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, 19, was arrested for the shootings and had tattoos affiliated with the gang, according to the New York City Police Department.
Trump hammered home TdA members’ crime sprees on the campaign trail, highlighting Riley’s violent death among others.
The nursing student went out for a jog when she was attacked and killed by Venezuelan illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra, who is a reported member of the TdA gang. Riley died Feb. 22, 2024, from blunt force trauma to the head and asphyxiation during an attempted sexual assault.
In Aurora, Colorado, residents complained of ongoing problems and crime at several apartment complexes reportedly taken over by TdA members. A viral surveillance video from August 2024 showed armed men entering an apartment unit at one of the buildings.
Prior to Trump’s return to office, federal authorities had launched more than 100 investigations into crimes linked to TdA members, according to an NBC News report highlighting how the gang members were slipping into the United States.
Even CNN reported on the gang being established in the U.S., along with the depths of its criminal activity, in June 2024.
The DOJ has charged members with murder, sex trafficking, kidnapping, weapons and drug trafficking, robbery, and widespread financial crimes.
In February, the DOJ announced 27 members and associates of Tren de Aragua had been charged in connection with a 2024 double murder in New York, along with sex trafficking, kidnapping, racketeering and other crimes.
In June, four TdA members who entered the U.S. illegally during the Biden administration pleaded guilty for the double murder in New York’s Bronx borough.
Three of the four criminals had been ordered deported by an immigration judge, but due to the Biden administration’s lax approach to immigration enforcement and the 1.5 million backlogged cases of illegal immigrants ordered deported, ICE was unable to arrest them, the Examiner reported.
Earlier this month, federal officials also captured Anibal Alexander Canelon Aguirre, who was added to the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list in March 2026. The feds returned him to Nebraska to face charges for conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other cyber and financial crimes.
Aguirre is the alleged mastermind behind sophisticated malware used to steal cash from ATMs nationwide. The gang had orchestrated a $40 million fraud scheme based on accessing ATMs.
To date, 120 defendants have been charged in the District of Nebraska for their role in the ATM Jackpotting conspiracy.
“Since President Trump designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, the Department of Justice has charged nearly 350 of its members and associates with brutal violent crimes,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said when announcing Aguirre’s arrest. “We will continue to break up narcoterrorist finance networks, prosecute violent criminals, and keep American neighborhoods safe.”
The U.S. government has sought out its leaders in an effort to dismantle the group’s criminal network. Trump posted on Truth Social that Tren de Aragua’s leader, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, was killed in June during a joint U.S.-Venezuelan military strike.
“Our message to Tren de Aragua and all the transnational criminal organizations is simple: we will dismantle your networks, seize your profits, and put the safety of the American people first,” Bis said. “The days of vicious gangs, like TdA, profiting off of the death of American citizens is over.”
