We are a national organization , all fifty states are in play. Your backyard is my backyard. No more catch and release, Biden’s days are over. The apprehension goes on, from State to State, from City to City. We will pick up those members of gangs M-13 and Tren de Aragua.
‘On notice’: Ex-Venezuelan military official applauds Trump’s ‘first good step’ targeting bloodthirsty gang
Peter Pinedo
January 24, 2025 at 1:00 AM
n one of the first moves of his administration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order taking drastic steps to crack down on the violent Venezuelan migrant gang “Tren de Aragua,” which has been terrorizing American cities in recent months.
Also known as “TdA,” Tren de Aragua is a Venezuelan criminal group present in over a dozen U.S. cities. The group has ties to the socialist Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and according to experts, is being used as a tool of asymmetric warfare to sow chaos and discord in the U.S.
Jose Gustavo Arocha, a former high-ranking Venezuelan military official and senior fellow at the U.S.-based Center for a Secure Free Society, told Fox News Digital that Trump’s order was an “extraordinary move” that is the “first good step in the route to neutralize TdA.”
The order – which is titled “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists” – instructs newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to move to designate Tren de Aragua, as well as Mexican gang MS-13 and other migrant gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
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A foreign terrorist designation expands the government’s ability to crack down on criminal groups operating in the U.S., allowing all government agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, to target that group from every angle.
The order states that these groups “present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” and invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEP) to declare a national emergency to “deal with those threats.”
“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States,” reads the order.
The order gives Rubio 14 days to make policy recommendations – in consultation with the secretaries of the Treasury and Homeland Security as well as the U.S. attorney general and director of National Intelligence – to make a recommendation regarding the designation of TdA, MS-13 and any other group as a foreign terrorist organization.
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According to Arocha, this move could spell the beginning of the end for TdA’s reign of terror in the United States.
“This executive order that Trump signed is perfect to neutralize unconventional tools that were made by the Venezuela regime,” he said. “The TdA is an asymmetrical and unconventional tool to harm the United States, [and] not only the United States, all the region … [so] you have to use unconventional tools, too.”
Joseph Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society who in 2024 authored a report on how to dismantle TdA, explained to Fox News Digital that designating these groups as foreign terrorist organizations places them “at the highest level” of U.S. national security interest, meaning their funding and any organizations enabling them can be targeted as well.
“Trump just put all of them on notice,” said Humire. “This said: ‘We know you’re here; we know you’re up to no good and we’re going to come after you.'”
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‘Deportation flights have begun’ as Trump sends ‘strong and clear message,’ White House says
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Friday that “deportation flights have begun,” releasing photos of people boarding military aircraft.
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Chinese New Year of the Snake January 29.