You can say this about the migrants in the Venezuelan-originated Tren de Aragua gang: They may be thugs, but they keep abreast of American political news.
Now, thanks to the fact that a border hawk of a president is less than 20 days away from taking office, they’re flooding the border in an attempt to get into the United States before Trump gets into office.
According to a report in the New York Post published on Tuesday, border agents in El Paso, Texas, have been overwhelmed by mobs of gang members, wielding knives and looking to get into the country before Joe Biden hands Donald Trump the keys on Inauguration Day.
Tren de Aragua gang attacks agents, mobs border to flood US with members ahead of Trump presidency: reporthttps://t.co/Z8zyeH90r7
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 31, 2024
The report comes after a memo from the Texas Department of Public Safety was leaked to the paper.
The memo said that “20 of the Venezuelan gangbangers — armed with blades, tire irons and broken liquor bottles — tried to force their way into the U.S. at a border gate,” according to the Post.
“Another attempt to break through is expected on New Year’s Day, the memo warned,” the report from Jennie Taer added.
Victor Avila, a retired former agent with Homeland Security Investigations, told the outlet that the reasons for it were obvious: The gang could watch the news just as well as anyone else.
“You’re seeing that violence at the border because they know that it’s going to change in 27 days. It’s going to change. It’s going to be different, and they’re going to be sought after,” Avila said.
Will Trump be able to tackle the border crisis?
What’s more, an anonymous informant told authorities in Texas that the border mobs “would continue every night” in the wee hours.
The tipster, a source said, alleged the gang plans to “cause harm” to the Texas National Guard soldiers protecting the border because the federal government refuses to step up. The gang members plan to do this “especially when they are left alone with no agents” to assist.
Furthermore, a source within Texas law enforcement said that “gunfire has picked up big time” in the El Paso sector of the border as the gang members try to enter.
A November report from the Post said that the gang had now established a presence in 16 states.
Previously, the gang had been reported in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
As of November, Montana, Virginia, and Wyoming had been added to the list, along with the District of Columbia.
The gang is most associated with the state of Colorado — in particular the city of Aurora, where the media spent an unholy amount of time trying to “debunk” the rumor that the gang had taken over an apartment complex in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
They’d more or less given up on this after 16 people at the apartment complex suspected of being members of the gang were taken into custody earlier in December, not the first (and certainly not the last) mass arrest of the gang’s members in the Denver suburb.
In September, we found out that in March, “more than 100 suspected TdA members were arrested after the riots at the El Paso border, when immigrants assaulted the Texas National Guard,” according to a statement by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
And now, since they know the border will be a day one issue for the new Trump administration, the gang is intensifying its border rush, thinking — not wrongly — that it’s much better to be in the country before the Republicans start making serious moves than on the other side of the border.
As if America needed any more reason to believe it made the right choice in November, there you have it: One president selling off border wall materials in an end-of-term fire sale; the president-elect promising to build that wall and make sure that Tren de Aragua members stay out.
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