The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed the Trump administration a victory, backing the legality of the administration's effort to deport accused members of the Venezuelan criminal gang known as Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act. The court also required the government to give the Venezuelans "reasonable time" to contest their deportations.
Federal officials have framed the gang as a national scourge and an "invasion," something gang experts say is likely overstated.
To justify the deportations, the federal government has relied heavily on clothing and tattoos to identify people as Tren de Aragua, for purposes of summary deportation — which eliminates the right to appear before a judge or to apply for legal status — under the Alien Enemies Act, according to court filings.
The global roster of Tren de Aragua gang members is unclear -- though the administration has cited the arrest of migrants with past alleged connections as reason for the drive to remove Tren de Aragua from the United States. The Biden administration last summer classified the gang as a transnational criminal organization.
The symbols touted by federal officials as proof of gang membership, including rose and clock tattoos, are popular symbols with many Venezuelans, according to Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan investigative journalist who's tracked the gang. As she's told NPR, "Maybe there's a Tren de Aragua member who has that tattoo, but that's not enough to identify them as Tren de Aragua."
Charles Katz, a professor at Arizona State University who has studied Latin American criminal gangs, says there is a huge difference between intelligence that may help police track members of a gang and actual evidence that could convict someone of gang-related crimes in a court of law.
And he says even the gang-tracking intelligence is often second- or third-hand.
"Federal agencies don't have good gang data," he said. "They've defunded most of the strategies and operations to really keep tabs on those kinds of things."
He says it's "silly" for federal authorities to base a Tren de Aragua membership determination on a mere symbol, such as the Nike "Jumpman" logo, which has also been reportedly cited as grounds for deportation.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, in a statement to NPR took issue with experts and local officials who argue the gang's presence in the U.S. is overstated.
"You should ask the families of those killed, raped and maimed by gang members if they think the threat these terrorists pose to Americans are 'overstated,'" she said.
While gang experts believe Tren de Aragua is present in the United States, criminal cases are clustered mostly in the states that have received the most Venezuelan migrants: New York, Illinois, Florida, Texas and Colorado.
The victims of their alleged crimes are often other Venezuelan migrants, as in a federal case filed in Tennessee in February accusing eight people of running a "Transnational Commercial Sex Enterprise. At least three of the people running the organization allegedly intimidated the sex-trafficking victims by "invoking" ties to Tren de Aragua, according to federal prosecutors
In Aurora, which has been a target of immigration enforcement officials since Trump said he would start large-scale deportations with the stated aim of curbing prolific gang activity, local police say they've identified just over a dozen or so gang members in the city of 395,000.
And while Venezuela, and particularly Tren de Aragua, have generated the most attention from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the president, a review of available records found that Venezuelan immigrants have made up fewer than half of those publicly identified as detained on immigration violations.
Last August, as anger about the gang was catching on during the presidential campaign, Aurora police described the gang's presence there as "isolated."
There are a small handful of alleged Tren de Aragua members who face criminal charges in Colorado and prosecutors are worried the defendants will be deported before they can be tried in court.
One is Nixon Perez, who was charged with felony tampering in Adams County after picking up bullet casings from a firefight in the summer of 2024 before police arrived. Perez has since been deported to an El Salvadoran prison.
"When someone is deported before a local prosecutor like me has been able to charge and prosecute a defendant, one, it means that any victim in the case does not see justice," said Brian Mason, the county's elected district attorney. "And two, it completely undermines our ability to prosecute what may be a larger case."
Because Colorado doesn't allow local law enforcement to hold anyone longer than their sentence — or after they've posted bond — ICE officials said they have to use other measures in finding criminals.
"ICE's mission is public safety," ICE Denver Field Office Director Robert Guadian said in a post on X. "Criminal aliens will not be allowed to roam free."
DA Mason stressed that he didn't think there had to be tension between local law enforcement and ICE.
"Historically, state prosecutors like me have had really good relationships with our federal partners and were able to work these challenges out so that there aren't tensions, so that the federal government isn't undermining the state government in order to seek justice in the case," he said. "And now there is."
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