US intelligence finds Venezuela not directing gang, undercutting Trump’s use of Alien Enemies Act

The US intelligence community believes that the Venezuelan government is “probably” not directing the gang Tren de Aragua’s movements and operations inside the United States, according to a declassified assessment released on Monday that undercuts the Trump administration’s key argument for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations. According to the document, which was released to the Freedom of the Press Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act and provided to CNN, the intelligence community based its judgment largely on sometimes-lethal law enforcement action by the Venezuelan government against Tren de Aragua that shows it “treats TDA as a threat” as well as the fact that the group is so decentralized that any systemic relationship between the Maduro regime and the gang would be “logistically challenging” — and would likely be spotted by the US intelligence community. The assessment, which was circulated in the US government in early April, has become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives a president broad power to target and remove undocumented immigrants in times of war or when an enemy attempts an “invasion or predatory incursion.” Trump in March invoked the wartime law in part by declaring that “TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.” A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled that the president had unlawfully invoked the law, finding that the president “cannot summarily declare that a foreign nation or government has threatened or perpetrated an invasion or predatory incursion of the United States,” and blocking the administration from quickly deporting some alleged members of the Venezuelan gang. The intelligence assessment acknowledged that the Maduro regime likely “sometimes tolerates” Tren de Aragua’s presence within its borders, with some individual government officials cooperating with the group for financial gain. And FBI analysts assessed that some number of Venezuelan government officials “facilitate” TdA members’ migration to the United States and use “members as proxies” there and in other countries “to advance what they see as the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing governments and undermining public safety in those countries,” the assessment said. But the broader intelligence community views it as “highly unlikely” that there is any “strategic or consistent” cooperation between the Maduro government and Tren de Aragua. Intelligence analysts also expressed skepticism about some of the law enforcement reporting that some members of the regime may have provided financial support to TdA, because it cannot verify the sources’ access — and because some of the claims have come from people detained in the United States, which “could motivate them to make false allegations about their ties to the regime … to lessen any punishment by providing exculpatory of otherwise ‘valuable’ information to US prosecutors,” the report read. In any event, the intelligence community has “not observed the regime directing the TDA, including to push migrants to the United States, which would probably requirement extensive … coordination, and funding between regime entities and TDA leaders that we would collect,” the assessment read. Further, the assessment read, “the small size of TDA’s cells, its focus on low-skill criminal activities, and its decentralized structure make it highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.” The New York Times first reported on the declassified assessment. When reporting about the intelligence community’s view of the Maduro regime’s relationship to Tren de Aragua first appeared after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, the administration cast the reporting as both “inaccurate” and “classified,” with the Justice Department announcing a leak investigation. The assessment released on Monday appears to broadly confirm the press reporting of the intelligence community’s views. “Illegal immigrant criminals have raped, tortured, and murdered Americans, and still, the propaganda media continues to operate as apologists for them,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement on Monday, when asked about the April assessment. “It is outrageous that as President Trump and his administration work hard every day to make America safe by deporting these violent criminals, some in the media remain intent on twisting and manipulating intelligence assessments to undermine the President’s agenda to keep the American people safe.”