Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has become an early target of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump as part of his effort to tackle the growing violence and crime surrounding the gang.
According to CNN, Trump’s executive orders signed after his inauguration on Jan. 20 included a recommendation to the Department of State to designate the gang as a foreign terrorist organization, along with the Salvadoran MS-13 gang.
The executive order states both MS-13 and Tren de Aragua “pose similar threats to the United States. Their campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”
CNN further reported Tren de Aragua not only had a highly violent presence in Venezuela, the gang spread throughout Central America and South America, reaching into Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Peru.
Former Vice President of Colombia and retired Gen. Oscar Naranjo previously called the gang “the most disruptive criminal organization operating nowadays in Latin America,” and called the gang’s presence a “true challenge for the region,” according to CNN.
Tren de Aragua and a guerrilla group called the National Liberation Army are known to operate sex trafficking networks in Colombia and further exploit and victimize Venezuelan migrants and Colombians through sex trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, drug trafficking, kidnapping, “debt bondage,” and murder.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the FBI have both said the gang is now established in the U.S. and have since been terrorizing American citizens. In December, the gang reportedly kidnapped, bound, and violently assaulted a married couple in Auroa, Colorado.
A senior law enforcement source confirmed to CNN that a high-ranking member of the gang had been apprehended by federal agents in New York City during the first week of the immigration crackdown.
