Texas Moving to Force Tren de Aragua Gang Out of State, Says Gov. Abbott

Texas Governor Greg Abbott told Breitbart News he is making all available tools available to law enforcement to take action against the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang. The governor said the gang members will find their operations in Texas will become unprofitable, forcing them to leave the Lone Star State.

“If you look at the historical analysis written about them (TdA), they’re in a business operation,” Governor Abbott told Breitbart Texas in an exclusive interview on Friday. “They’re looking to make money. And what they’re going to find is, if they’re coming in the state of Texas, they’re losing money. It’s a losing money proposition in the state of Texas, and they’re going to realize they got to take their business elsewhere.”

Governor Abbott recently designated the Venezuelan prison gang as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, unleashing additional law enforcement tools to be employed against TdA gang members.

Abbott told Breitbart the designation allows the State to seize properties acquired by the TdA gang for use as human smuggling stash houses and other operational venues.

“The reason why that’s meaningful here is because their standard method of operation is that they will find a house or some other type of building or location that they will use as a stash house for purposes of trafficking people,” the Texas governor explained. “And it allows us to use this tool to shut down those physical properties that they’re using.”

The governor added that the designation also increases jail penalties “so that when we do arrest them, they’re going to be behind bars a very long time.”

Recently, Texas DPS troopers arrested 20 suspected TdA gang members on charges relating to their takeover of the Gateway Hotel in El Paso, Breitbart Texas reported. The members of the violent Venezuelan gang are charged with a variety of state crimes, including human smuggling, prostitution, and drug possession.

During the interview, Abbott mentioned the arrest of two more TdA gang members in the San Antonio area last week.

In August, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper arrested a confirmed Tren de Aragua, who was released by the Biden-Harris administration. The TdA gang member is charged with smuggling of persons. The Venezuelan gang member was wearing an ICE tracking device at the time of his arrest. This was his second arrest on human smuggling charges, Breitbart Texas reported.

Abbott told Breitbart that Tren de Aragua operates in El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and the Rio Grande Valley border region. In addition to the foreign terrorist organization designation, Abbott also offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of TdA gang members.

During Fiscal Year 2020, President Donald Trump’s last full year in office, Border Patrol agents apprehended only 465 Venezuelan migrants who crossed from Mexico into the five Texas-based sectors. During the first year of the Biden-Harris administration, a dramatic increase in crossings led to the apprehension of nearly 68,000 Venezuelan migrants.

From FY21-FY24 year-to-date, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 499,000 Venezuelan migrants who illegally entered the United States in the five Texas-based Border Patrol Sectors, Texas DPS officials reported.

“Our goal is to make sure we find them, identify them, locate them, arrest them, and lock them up,” Abbott stated during the Friday interview.