Mexico City – To help justify a comprehensive deportation campaign, an extraordinary American military accumulation in the Caribbean Sea region and unprecedented strikes on boats that are allegedly evading drugs, President Trump reiterated a talisman: Treen de Aragoa.
He insists that the street gang, which was established about a decade ago in Venezuela, is trying to “invade” the United States and threaten “the stability of the international system in the Western hemisphere.” Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump described the group as a “enemy of humanity” and the arm of the authoritarian government of Venezuela.
According to experts who study intelligence officials in the gang and Trump, there is nothing true.
While Tren De Aragua has been linked to human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping and expanding its mark with the spread of Venezuela’s diaspora throughout the Americas, there is little evidence that it pose a threat to the United States
“The Treene de Aragoa has no ability to invade any country, especially a nation that is stronger on the face of the earth,” said Rona Risskuiz, the Venezuelan journalist who wrote a book on the gang. She said that the group’s ingenuity was largely exaggerated by the Trump administration in order to rationalize the deportation of immigrants, the militarization of US foreign policy in Latin America, and perhaps even an attempt to lead the Venezuela president of power.
“It is useful to justify political actions,” she said. “In any way, the United States’s national security does not endanger.”
Before last year, a few Americans heard Treen de Aragoa.
The group was formed inside a prison in Arajoa in Venezuela, and then spread nearly 8 million Veneers of poverty and political repression under the Nicholas Maduro regime. Gang members were accused of sex trafficking, drug sales, murder, and other crimes in countries including Chile, Brazil and Colombia.
When large numbers of Venezuelan immigrants began entering the United States after seeking political asylum on the southern border, the authorities linked a handful of states crimes of the gang members.
It was Trump who put the group on the map.
During his campaign for his re -election last year, he appeared in an event in Aurora, Colorado, where the application of the law blamed the Trin de Aragoa members for many crimes, including killing. Trump stood beside the large stickers that include Mufus from Venezuelan immigrants.
“America has occupied the members of the TDA gang,” read. “The deportation of illegitimate people now,” said banners.
Soon after assuming his post, Trump announced a “invasion” by Trine de Aragoa and Call The Law of Foreign Enemies, rarely used the Eighteenth Century Law allowing the president to deport migrants during the war period. His administration flew 200 Veneers to El Salvador, where they were harboring in a notorious prison, although few men have documented links with Trin de Aragoa and most of them had no criminal records in the United States.
In recent months, Trump has once again sparked the threat of Trin de Aragoa to explain the deployment of thousands of American forces and a small study of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean.
In July, his administration announced that Tree de Aragoa was a terrorist group led by Maduro. In the same month, the Pentagon ordered the use of military force against the cartridges in Latin America, which described his terrorist government.
Three times in recent weeks, American forces have hit boats off the coast of Venezuela, which they said were carrying members of Treen de Aragoa who were accusing drugs.
The administration has not made any evidence of these claims. Fourteen people were killed.
Trump has warned that more strikes are coming. He said in his speech to the United Nations: “For every terrorist from thugs, he escapes from toxic drugs in the United States of America, please warn us that we will explode you from existence,” he said in his speech to the United Nations.
While he insists that strikes aim to disrupt the drug trade-with a pretext that every boat was carrying enough drugs to kill 25,000 Americans-analysts say there is little evidence that Treen de Aragua is involved in high-level drug trafficking, and there is no evidence that he is participating in the movement of Fintanil, which is produced in Mexico that was imported from China from China. The Drug Control Administration estimates that only 8 % of the cocaine trafficking in the United States passes through Venezuelan lands.
This speculation has been fueled by whether the real goal may be to change the system.
“Everyone is wondering about Trump’s final game,” said Irene Mia, an older colleague at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a international security research tank.
She said that while there are officials inside the White House, they seem to be eager to work with Venezuela, others, including Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, are open to their desire to overthrow the Maduro and other left -wing people in the region.
“We will not have a card that works or denies as a government working in our hemisphere,” Rubio told Fox News this month.
VIP US intelligence officials said they do not believe that Maduro has links with Trin de Aragoa.
The secrecy has been raised note The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not find any evidence of widespread cooperation between his regime and the gang. He also said that Tren De Aragua does not pose a threat to the United States: “The small size of TDA cells, their focus on low -skilled criminal activities and its decentralized structure makes it unlikely that TDA coordinates large amounts of human trafficking or smuggling migrants.”
Michael Parralberg, a political scientist studying Latin America at the University of Virginia Community, said he believed that Trump is using the gang to achieve political goals – and to pay attention from local differences such as his decision to close the investigation into the perpetrator, Jeffrey Epstein.
He said that Trin de Aragoa is less powerful than other gangs in Latin America. “But she was the proper control man for the Trump administration.”