During President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, Venezuelan-born gang Tren de Aragua went from being a group relatively unknown outside Latin America to a household name in the United States.
Since declaring it a terrorist organization in February, the Trump administration has used the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of migrants to El Salvador accusing them of being Tren de Aragua members.
The deportations, described by Human Rights Watch as "enforced disappearances", have seen innocent people sent to a prison known for abusive conditions including the use of torture.
But years before the White House crackdown South American countries grappling with the gang employed the same tactics as Trump: they used the Tren de Aragua as a political tool to criticize urban insecurity, stigmatize Venezuelan migrants, and justify anti-immigration policies.
Where did the Tren de Aragua come from?
The gang derives its name from the Venezuelan State of Aragua, home to a penitentiary where the group was formed.
Tren de Aragua operated criminal rackets including kidnapping and extortion, using violent tactics to instill fear in areas of influence across the country.
But when the Venezuelan economic crisis and mass emigration began around 2014, the country became a less profitable base for criminal activities.
"People didn't have money, kidnapping wasn't so profitable, stealing stuff from people... wasn't terribly profitable either, and the economy was collapsing. So, they began a process of international expansion," Phil Gunson, Senior Andes Analyst at Crisis Group, told The Latin Times.
As Venezuelan migrants spread across the Americas, so too did Tren de Aragua members, exploiting vulnerable people through extortion and human trafficking.
Soon, they began to earn an international reputation for extreme violence.
"They engaged in spectacular acts of violence that made it easier for them to engage in criminal enterprises because a lot of the time, people were too scared to do anything against them," explained Gunson.
Kidnappings, contract killings, and even grenade attacks became part of the gang's brutal brand.
Repercussions in Latin America
The arrival of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and media coverage of Tren de Aragua's violent tactics fueled public worries in countries like Colombia and Chile, where the group was most active.
Opportunistic politicians took advantage of these fears, according to Ronna Rísquez, a prominent Venezuelan journalist and author of the definitive book on the group, Tren de Aragua.
"It is a political tool that has been used in electoral campaigns to evidence the security failures of local and national governments," Rísquez told The Latin Times.
Opposition politicians also exploited attention around Tren de Aragua's high-profile actions to criticize incumbents' records on crime and security. They also used fear of the gang to justify anti-Venezuelan sentiment and anti-immigration policies, according to Rísquez.
"Many measures have been taken in the past years against Venezuelan migrants based on arguments about criminality and the Tren de Aragua," the author said.
"The result has been the criminalization and stigmatization of Venezuelan migration," Rísquez added.
Gunson also explained that crackdowns on the Tren de Aragua may be politically expedient for incumbent governments who want to project success in anti-crime campaigns.
"Since they have such a prominent identity, and they're regarded at the moment as, you know, one of the key international crime gangs in the hemisphere, then obviously it's good from a political point of view, from a policing standpoint to be able to say that you captured them," said the analyst.
But, as Gunson notes, the Venezuelan gang poses a limited threat to national security in the region compared to much larger criminal organizations like Mexican drug cartels or Colombian guerrilla forces, which control large amounts of territory.
"These are much more dangerous... much more of a threat, certainly to the governments in each of these countries, than anything that Tren de Aragua has so far come up with," said the analyst.
"I suspect it's a lot easier to round up a few Venezuelans," added Gunson.
A leaf out of South America's playbook
For many observers tuned into Latin American politics, Trump's actions bear a strong resemblance to those of his southern neighbors.
On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump pounced on a viral video of an apartment block in Aurora, Colorado, showing alleged Tren de Aragua members knocking on a resident's door, one brandishing an assault rifle.
He described the city as a "war zone," using the case to criticize then-President Joe Biden's migration policies and to exemplify links between illegal migration and urban crime, mirroring strategies employed by Latin American opposition politicians in recent years.
Since taking office, Trump has doubled down on this rhetoric, declaring the group a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
"It's expedient for the Trump administration to claim that Tren de Aragua is a terrorist organization because it facilitates a policy which actually has really nothing to do with that... presenting plausible excuses for a campaign of mass deportation," said Gunson.
As with Latin American nations, Trump has exploited existing stigma around Venezuelan migrants in particular, which Gunson describes as "an easy target."
"It's a very easy sell... to the U.S. public to say that [Nicolas] Maduro... has sent these people and that they're terrorists and that they have to be deported," explained the analyst.
In addition to stigmatizing Venezuelan migrants, Trump's focus on Tren de Aragua over other criminal groups resembles Latin American anti-crime tactics.
Rísquez criticized Trump's hypocrisy in focusing on the Venezuelan gang whilst Mexican criminal organizations have a much larger and more organized presence in the U.S..
"If we compare the Tren de Aragua with the actions carried out by Mexican cartels over the years, there is no equivalency," said the author.
Mexican cartels are not only far larger and more organized in the U.S., they are largely responsible for the deadly fentanyl trade that Trump has promised to stamp out.
In contrast, both Rísquez and Gunson highlighted uncertainty over whether Tren de Aragua even exists as an organized group inside the U.S..
But, with the White House pushing for continued deportations in a recent meeting with Salvadoran President Nayibb Bukele, the reality of the Tren de Aragua threat appears less important than its political utility.
Just as in South America, fear continues to trump fact in the government's approach to the gang.
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