Biden Administration Implements Salazar Plan to Designate Vicious Tren de Aragua Gang as ‘Transnational Criminal Organization’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) issued the following statement after the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced it would designate the vicious Tren de Aragua gang as a Transnational Criminal Organization (TCO):

“Over the last year, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has managed to move their operations north by taking advantage of our porous southern border. My constituents in Miami, many of them Venezuelans themselves, should not have to endure living amongst the same kinds of criminals that forced them to leave their home country.

“I welcome the news that the Biden Administration took my and Senator Rubio’s warning about the threat the vicious Tren de Aragua gang poses to our communities seriously. With the Transnational Criminal Organization designation, the federal government has the tools it needs to hunt down their blood-soaked leaders. Now it’s time to secure our border to make sure they don’t come in anymore.”

BACKGROUND:

Tren de Aragua is currently implicated in over 100 crimes in the United States, including murders and the beating of police officers. In March 2024, Rep. Salazar joined Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and several other colleagues in sending a letter to President Biden urging him to designate Tren de Aragua as a TCO.

This designation will help us tackle this threat head on. The announcement from the Department of Treasury sanctioning this group and designating them as a TCO can be found here.

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