In 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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“Now critics may say, well, he’s going to create a war on terror or drugs, and it’s really a reaction of fear. They say: ‘Oh, you know, these guys are so dangerous.’ And what you know about criminality, whether it’s terrorism or any kind of criminality, is that they only respond to strength. They prey on fear. If they think you’re scared to attack you more,” he said. “So, by showing this strength, it’s the first action of deterrence.”
In addition to sending a message of strength, Humire said the executive order signals that there will be “meaningful action taking place really, really soon to start to arrest and dismantle” TdA’s presence in the U.S.
Andrew Arthur, a law and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Digital that one of the most important aspects of designating TdA a foreign terrorist organization is enabling the U.S. government to target TdA’s funding, which he said can essentially “bleed them dry.”
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“Money is the lifeblood of these organizations,” he said. “It’s really the funding element of all this that is crucial to going after a terrorist organization, because if you cut them off from the money, they’re not going to be able to pay people. They’re not going to be able to pay bribes to corrupt officials, they are not going to be able to pay their foot soldiers, are not going to be able to buy the big guns and the things that they used to operate.“
“It’s not just the guy with the AK-47 or the guy with the IED that’s a terrorist. It’s all those people that helped to make that possible,” he went on. “So, when you designate them as terrorist organizations, in addition to going after the keepers or the kingpins of these organizations and the various foot soldiers that they employ, you can also go after the individuals who provide material support.”
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