Texas vows to crack down against Venezuelan gangs: 'We must stop them in their tracks'
Gov. Greg Abbott joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss how the Lone Star State is cracking down against Venezuelan gang violence and how designating them as foreign terror organizations unlocks more tools to combat the surge.
Texas is taking matters into its own hands to crack down on members of Tren de Aragua – a dangerous Venezuelan gang operating in the U.S. after the Biden administration allowed mass numbers of migrants to come into the country.
"Texas is having to piece together from scratch a database of the background of all these people coming across our border from Venezuela," Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott told "America's Newsroom" Tuesday.
"We look at tattoos. We look at other factors either on their body or in their modus operandi to help us identify a database of these TdA members. That allows us to better track them down and arrest them."
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Tren de Aragua is a violent Venezuelan gang that has been causing havoc in multiple states across the United States. (Fox News/Border Patrol)
The gang is believed to have originated in Venezuelan prisons and moved north over the last decade. But its reputation within the U.S. has grown this year, in part due to a number of high-profile crimes linked to the gang, with many believed to have arrived by coming across the southern border as part of the sharp increase in migration in recent years.
Abbott will be declaring the gang a foreign terrorist organization and condemned the Biden administration for "allowing large numbers of Venezuelans to come into the United States."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its latest statistics Monday, showing nearly 530,000 migrants flew into the U.S. and were paroled into the country as part of the Biden administration’s controversial mass parole program for those migrating from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV).
"We will bring the full weight of the government against the TdA," Abbott said Monday. "By declaring TdA a foreign terrorist organization, Texas will use the courts to halt their operations, use civil asset forfeiture to take the property and use enhanced criminal penalties to keep them in jail behind bars for longer periods of time."
Abbott's declaration provides the state with tools to be more aggressive in going after the gang.
"We have nine anti-gang units across the entire state of Texas," he said Tuesday. "They operate at the federal, state and local level collaborating against gangs. What I did yesterday was to elevate TdA as the number one gang that our anti-gang partners will be going against."
"We are seeking them. We will find them. We will put them behind bars to make sure that Texas is hostile territory to this treacherous gang," he continued. "We must stop them in their tracks in the United States of America."
The governor added that he has recently signed laws that directly target activity TdA is involved in.
"If we get our hands on them, they're going to be subject to a mandatory minimum of at least 10 years behind bars," he said.
Border officials told Fox recently they are targeting the gang as a priority, and officials in Dallas said they have seen gang activity in the north Dallas area linked to TdA. The gang hit the headlines over reports of a takeover of apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado.
Fox News Digital reported in July that TdA members have been given a "green light" to fire on or attack law enforcement in Denver. The Biden administration designated the group a "significant transnational criminal organization" in July and offered up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest of three of its leaders.
According to a recent report from the DHS Inspector General, ICE does not have the bodies to track and remove the additional population allowed under the Biden administration’s programs, nor has any agency been monitoring the parole expiration.
Abbott noted more than 100 gang members were arrested during a riot at the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso earlier this year. On Tuesday, he said that strike teams were being formed to surge resources to areas where gang members are believed to be working.
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Fox News' Adam Shaw, Bill Melugin and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
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