Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons said on Friday that his agency has rounded up nearly 400 members of t...
Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons said on Friday that his agency has rounded up nearly 400 members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization since President Donald Trump took office.
Lyons revealed that ICE arrested 68 members of the organization in the last 48 hours alone.
“TDA members aren’t stupid,” he said at a press conference. “They don’t wear uniforms like the men and women here. They’re out there. They’re sophisticated, and they hide their crimes.”
“But today I’m here to let everyone know that we are more sophisticated,” he said. “We have more resources than ever to find them and get rid of them from the United States. Since March 15, the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, and our officers have risked their lives every day to ensure that we are going after these foreign terrorist networks in our communities.”
He said that the goal was to “eradicate TDA from U.S. soil.”
The Trump administration deported 250 illegal aliens belonging to the terrorist organization last week despite efforts from an Obama-appointed federal judge to stop the deportations.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 this month to authorize the rapid removal of Tren de Aragua members from the country.
The law allows the president to arrest, detain, and deport non-citizens aged 14-years-old or older who come from nations that are mounting an “invasion or predatory incursion” into the United States. Tren de Aragua was one of the entities that the Trump administration designated as a foreign terror organization on the president’s first day in office.
“TdA is a transnational organization that originated in Venezuela with cells in Colombia, Peru, and Chile, with further reports of sporadic presence in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil,” the Trump State Department said of Tren de Aragua. “This brutal criminal group has conducted kidnappings, extorted businesses, bribed public officials, authorized its members to attack and kill U.S. law enforcement, and assassinated a Venezuelan opposition figure.”
The gang became infamous after members of the criminal organization took control over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado.