Homeland Security released a memo last week revealing that the violent Venzuelan gang Tren de Aragua has expanded its reach into at least 16 US states: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wyoming, Montana, and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia.
The gang is involved in a variety of criminal acts nationwide, ranging from lower-level fraud and snatch-and-grab robberies to assaults, gun and drug smuggling, sex trafficking, and shootings, often with competing gangs. According to authorities, they are sending funds from their crimes back to South America to finance further criminal activities.
According to the New York Post:
TdA members embedded themselves in the waves of millions of migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border during the Biden-Harris administration. With no information-sharing between the US and Venezuela to detect the gang members, they were easily released into the US, according to US Border Patrol sources.
To complicate matters, Venezuela refuses to accept deportation flights carrying deported Venezuelans back to Venezuela, and the Biden administration has been powerless (or perhaps just unwilling) to convince them otherwise.
For more, see the NY Post.