Opinion | Trump says that a Venezuelan band is invading the United States. He is wrong.

The Trump administration last month was deported Dozens of Venezuelan men To El Salvador, sending them to a maximum security prison for the members of the band. The administration said that most men were members of the Venezuelan band Tren de Aragua, a group that, according to the Executive order Decrete deportations is “to lead an irregular war and take hostile actions against the United States”.

Tren de Aragua is not invading America. While the research organization Insight CrimeWhich has monitored the gang for years, discovered that it has a limited presence in the United States, the researchers have not seen evidence of having organized cells in the country that cooperate with each other, much less they receive indications from abroad. The claims of the government exaggerated and who achieve it public concern The group’s activities in the United States is equivalent to a classic moral panic, in which a handful of crimes is mentioned by politicians as proof of an urgent threat to society.

To tell the truth, Tren de Aragua is a dangerous group, responsible for horrendous crimes in Venezuela and elsewhere in South America. We three have spent decades to study violence In Venezuela precisely because we understand its ability to destroy lives, families and neighborhoods. But central in the creation of a safer world is to obtain the right causes, causes and solutions. So far, many American politicians, police officers and journalists have not been able to do it and have instead perpetuated wrong ideas on Tren de Aragua.

The largest misunderstanding concerns the organizational capacity of the group. Tren de Aragua was recently designated a Terrorist organization From the United States, together with much more established groups such as the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador and signs in Mexico. Calling the terrorist criminal groups is always a stroke because they usually do not aim to change government policy.

But this is particularly true with Tren de Aragua. Compared to these others it is a relatively young organization with relatively limited ability and no historical political aspiration. Indeed, from Venezuelan The military in 2023 rushed The prison that Tren de Aragua controlled and was based, the gang was increasingly dispersed, not organized centrally and without declarations of political objectives.

Tren de Aragua emerged in the penitentiary in the city of Toporón around 2014. Its expansion in South America is closely linked to the mass migration of the Venezuelans who accelerated shortly after. Its criminal operations mainly involve non -trafficking of international drugs or transnational extortion rackets, but smuggling migrants and the sexual exploitation of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, Chile and Peru. None of the primary economic activities of the group suggests a significant expansion outside of South America.

Although immigration officials and US customs Little disseminated On how men deported last month they were identified, now we know that ice officers Use a column To help determine if someone is a member of Tren de Aragua, including symbols and logos, such as tattoos. The designation of tattoos as a bandwidth identifier presumably derives from the practice of the bands of the Central American to indicate adhesion to tattoos, but our research He suggests that Tren de Aragua and Venezuelane bands more generally, do not have a story of doing it. Many young Venezuelans, like young people from all over the world, borrow from the global culture of iconic symbols and get tattoos. This does not mean they are in a band.

Organized crime is much less portable than people usually think. Generally involves control of illegal markets, which in turn depends on relations with the local population and officials. These networks are not easily transferable and limit mobility. This is one of the reasons why many criminal groups have a geography in their name: Sinaloa, Medellín, Cali and, of course, Aragua, an agricultural state in Venezuela in the northern center and hosted the prison of Tren de Aragua. These names describe their base of operations and the place where they are dominant.

The Trump administration has suggested That president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has sent members of Tren de Aragua and other Venezuelan gangs in the United States to destabilize the country. But in February, the US intelligence agencies According to reports, circulated The results internally according to which Tren de Aragua is not controlled by the Maduro government and by the members of the gang that are in the United States were not sent here.

While there is Without a doubt criminal activity Within the Maduro regime, his relationship with criminal groups is equivalent to a unstable and volatile Collage, with armed groups in competition that temporarily collaborate with the government when their different interests overlap. The same goes for Tren de Aragua: while there were moments in which the group and the Maduro government negotiated pacts that served their interests, their relationship is better characterized as an antagonist and competitive, as highlighted by Military raid on the Tocorón prison.

A handful of News reports Speaking of suspicious members of Tren de Aragua describe them as responsible for serious crimes in America. The arrests were mainly for crimes such as the robbery, theft with burglary and cell phone. And of course other Venezuelan immigrants have also committed crimes in the United States; with About 770,000 Living here since 2023, pure numbers make this inevitability. None of this is proof of an invasion of Tren de Aragua.

Over the past two centuries, the arrival of Irish, Italian, Chinese and Mexican immigrants in America has produced similar moral panics, started from real problems but also exploited by politicians. Despite the constant statements of President Trump, America is not in the grip of a wave of crime – the preliminary data of the FBI show that the crime has continued to fall last year – e research consistently shows What the increases in immigration do not cause crime increases.

The deportations of the Trump administration of over 200 Venezuelan men to a prison in Salvadoran and overcrowded will almost certainly help to discourage migration, but there are ways to curb immigration that are not based on mass criminalization, arbitrary possession and violation of the right process, all the characteristics of the regime are trying to escape.

Revisuga of discussion on bipartisan Immigration reform The proposal developed in 2023 and 2024 would be a good starting point. Almost all those who are involved in the review system of refugees and immigrants agree that it cannot promptly judge cases and must be strengthened. Interesting proposals For non -profit organizations, for example, the combination of immigrants in the communities should be taken into consideration with the lack of labor and facilitate access to justice services. And given that most migrants are fleeing from poverty and violence in their countries of origin, it should be focused on strengthening democracy and prosperity south of the border.

None of these initiatives is probably in an administration that seems set on coercive and dissuasive policies. But any policy pursue immigration officials must respect the state of law and human rights. The mass criminalization, the arbitrary possession and the violation of the right process that have so far characterized the actions of the Trump administration have echoed some tactics of the Venezuelan regime from which many young people have fled. It reduces credibility and encourages self -cta everywhere.

Rebecca Hanson is a professor of sociology at the University of Florida. David Smilde is a professor of sociology at Tulane University. Verónica Zubillaga is a sociologist and co-director of the network for activism and research for coexistence, an anti-violence non-government organization in Caracas, Venezuela.

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