'Ghost criminals': How Venezuelan gang members are slipping into the U.S.
U.S. law enforcement and immigration officials are investigating more than 100 criminal cases tied to suspected members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
U.S. law enforcement and immigration officials have launched more than 100 investigations of crimes tied to suspected members of a violent Venezuelan gang, including sex trafficking in Louisiana and the point-blank shooting of two New York City police officers, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials.
The cases involving the Tren de Aragua gang show how hard it is for U.S. border agents to vet the criminal backgrounds of migrants from countries like Venezuela that won’t give the U.S. any help.
More than 330,000 Venezuelans crossed the U.S. border last year, according to Customs and Border Protection data, and Venezuela, like Cuba, China and a handful of other countries, doesn’t provide any criminal history information to U.S. officials.
Former Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair says there are limits to what the federal government can know about a migrant's criminal history.NBC NewsIn the June 3 New York shooting, which both police officers survived, the alleged shooter had been encountered by the U.S. Border Patrol after having crossed into Texas illegally, according to New York police. He was then released into the U.S. to await an asylum hearing. It’s unclear whether his alleged affiliation with Tren de Aragua was known to Venezuelan authorities. Even if it was, that information wouldn’t have been available to the Border Patrol.
As former Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair told NBC News, unless agents get a Venezuelan migrant’s criminal history from Interpol or “they already have a criminal record inside the United States, we won’t know who they are.”
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