“These violent murders should never have occurred in the first place because these men should have never been allowed in our country.”
The Trump administration announced charges on Wednesday against eight alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) in connection with violent crimes in Texas and Illinois.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel detailed the charges during a press conference, describing separate cases in Dallas and Chicago. Blanche noted that all defendants charged had entered the country illegally under the Biden administration and later became involved in violent criminal activity.
“These violent murders should never have occurred in the first place because these men should have never been allowed in our country,” Blanche said.
In the Texas case, federal prosecutors allege that five individuals linked to the gang were involved in a 2024 incident in which a Dallas father was killed, and both his 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old nephew were kidnapped. Three of the men were already in custody on unrelated charges, while another is being held in Colombia.
In a separate case in Chicago, three additional alleged members of the gang were charged in connection with a brutal killing.
Blanche said all eight alleged TdA members had entered the country under the Biden administration between December 2021 and April 2024. “None of these men should have been in this country,” Blanche noted again.
Since the Trump administration took office, over 350 alleged TdA members have been arrested and charged, according to Blanche.
The acting AG was asked by Newsweek whether the ongoing earthquake in Venezuela has affected the gang’s operations, saying the DOJ and FBI have continued their crackdown.
"It's a horrific tragedy, and I think at a time when over the past week, 10 days, a lot of the effort we have been entering into has been to save lives and to help the communities there recover, I view that as a separate track from the work we're doing here to combat TdA," Blanche said. "Whether they are here, in Colombia, or Venezuela.
"I don't view the tragedy as having slowed us down, it's just something all of our hearts break for what happened in Venezuela, but that is separate and apart from what we're doing on the TdA folks,” he told the outlet.
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