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New York Times
an hour ago
- General
- New York Times
F.B.I. Memo Sheds Light on Dispute Over Venezuelan Gang
An F.B.I. intelligence memo unsealed on Wednesday offers new details on why the bureau concluded that some Venezuelan government officials were likely to have had some responsibility for a criminal gang's actions in the United States, pitting it against other intelligence agencies in a heated dispute over President Trump's use of a wartime law. The memo, whose conclusions the remaining intelligence agencies have rejected, was submitted by the administration to a federal judge in Texas before a hearing on Thursday. It is part of a proliferating array of lawsuits over Mr. Trump's use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport people accused of being members of that gang, Tren de Aragua, to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process. 'The F.B.I. assesses some Venezuelan government officials likely facilitate the migration of TdA members from Venezuela to the United States to advance the Maduro regime's objective of undermining public safety in the United States,' the memo said, using an abbreviation for the gang. It added that the bureau also thinks some officials in the administration of Venezeula's president, Nicolas Maduro, 'likely use TdA members as proxies.' The submission of the memo opens the door to greater judicial scrutiny of a key basis for Mr. Trump's assertion that he can invoke the rarely used law to summarily deport people accused of being members of the gang. It also offers a glimpse of the claims put forth by several detained migrants that formed the basis for the F.B.I.'s assessment. In March, Mr. Trump proclaimed that Venezuela's government controls the gang — a key premise for his use of the wartime deportation law — as he sent planeloads of men to El Salvador. Courts have since halted such transfers under the act, ruling that it is likely that it does not apply to the issue of undocumented migrants rather than a wartime situation. Despite the F.B.I.'s assessment, the majority of the nation's intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, believe Mr. Trump's claim is inaccurate. The National Intelligence Council, an elite internal think tank that policymakers can commission for special projects, has written two assessments to that effect, while also noting that the F.B.I. partly dissented. The F.B.I.'s minority views were known, in part because one of the council's memos was declassified and released this month in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Among other things, it made it clear that the F.B.I. had based its view on the statements of several migrants arrested in the United States. But it was not clear how many migrants the F.B.I. had relied on for its analysis; the memo said that the agency's view was based on statements by seven sources. The memo detailed what only one of them had said, however. 'According to a human source with indirect access,' the memo stated, strategic decision-making regarding the Venezuelan government's use of the gang went through President Nicolás Maduro, 'who used confidants as go-betweens to insulate himself from public affiliation' with the gang. At the same time, the memo said the F.B.I. had judged that high-ranking Venezuelan officials were not involved in the gang's 'daily activities.' It also said that it had considered an alternative hypothesis that the gang members were migrating and committing crimes on their own to be 'more or less equally plausible,' but said the bureau deemed its view to be 'more likely.' The F.B.I. put its assessment at 'medium' confidence and said it was considering moving that to lower confidence 'due to the primary sources, who were one-time contacts with indirect access and who may have been motivated by the perceived possibility of a favorable immigration decision.' The National Intelligence Council, which conducted an analysis drawing on the available evidence from all intelligence agencies, put greater weight on that skepticism. 'Most' of the intelligence community 'judges that intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible,' it wrote. The legal troubles of the detainees, the council said, could 'motivate them to make false allegations about their ties to the Venezuelan regime in an effort to deflect responsibility for their crimes and to lessen any punishment by providing exculpatory or otherwise 'valuable' information to U.S. prosecutors.' But the council and the other agencies had other issues with the allegations as well. They scrutinized whether the detainees 'could credibly have access to the information reported' and whether they had offered details that could be corroborated. Coordination of the sort that the migrants had claimed was almost certain to have required communications and financial transfers that the U.S. government would expect to collect but had not seen. The intelligence community ultimately concluded that 'the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,' the council said in its memo. The Justice Department does not appear to have submitted the council's memo summarizing the broader analysis by all the other intelligence agencies. The White House commissioned a systematic look at the evidence about Venezuela's government and the gang in February, as Mr. Trump considered using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans. The National Intelligence Council produced a memo on Feb. 26 that concluded that Venezuela's government does not control the gang. The memo noted that the F.B.I. did believe there were some links based on information the rest of the intelligence community did not think was credible. Still, on March 15, Mr. Trump signed a proclamation saying the opposite. Days later, The New York Times reported on the Feb. 26 memo, prompting the Justice Department to announce a criminal leak investigation. Joe Kent, a top aide to the director of national intelligence, also asked the acting head of the council at the time, a career analyst named Michael Collins, to produce a new assessment. In emails, Mr. Kent later demanded further 'rewriting' of a draft of the new assessment so it could not be 'used against' Mr. Trump. But the final version still concluded that Venezuela's government does not control the gang and that the F.B.I.'s view that some officials were using it as a proxy were not credible. Mr. Collins has since been fired.
Jordan News
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Jordan News
New U.S. Directives on Student Visas - Jordan News
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered a suspension of foreign student visa applications, as President Donald Trump's administration intensifies scrutiny of applicants' social media accounts, according to an internal document. اضافة اعلان The document instructs embassies and consulates not to approve 'appointments for new student or educational exchange visas until new guidance is issued.' Trump has made combating illegal immigration a top priority, frequently speaking of an 'invasion' of the United States by 'criminals from abroad,' and repeatedly calling for the deportation of migrants. However, the mass deportation program he launched has been hindered or slowed by court rulings. On April 19, several federal and appellate courts—as well as the Supreme Court itself—banned the use of the 'Alien Enemies Act' of 1798, which had previously been invoked only during wartime. The courts ruled that authorities must 'provide individuals facing deportation with more advanced notice.' Trump had invoked the little-known law—last used to detain Japanese-American citizens during World War II—in March, when he deported two plane loads of members of the 'Tren de Aragua' gang to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Peru arrests extortion gang that used Nazi symbols to sow terror
Police in Peru have captured a group of extortionists that used Nazi insignia to intimidate their victims, authorities said Tuesday. The five suspects from Colombia and Venezuela were arrested in raids on two homes, one in the capital Lima and another in the neighboring city of Huaral. In addition to weapons and explosives, police discovered around 100 stickers depicting an eagle with a swastika, an emblem of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler. Investigators found an oil painting of late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar with a wad of dollars sticking out of his shirt pocket. Police chief Juan Mundaca said the authorities were investigating whether the stickers were the same as those that appeared on the homes and cars of extortion victims. Prosecutor Jose Silva said the gang had threatened business owners in the Huaral area, as well as a judge. Peru is battling a steep surge in gang violence, characterized by a wave of killings linked to extortion rackets. Criminal gangs such as Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, which operates across Latin America, are accused of holding entire communities to ransom and of gunning down people who refuse to pay protection money. This is not the first time that criminal gangs in the Andean nation have been caught using Nazi symbols. In May 2023, police seized 58 kilograms of cocaine bricks destined for Belgium which were wrapped in a Nazi flag and stamped with Hitler's name. cm/ljc/cb
France 24
a day ago
- France 24
Peru arrests extortion gang that used Nazi symbols to sow terror
Peruvian police on Tuesday captured a gang of Venezuelan and Colombian extortionists accused of using Nazi symbols to intimidate their victims The five suspects from Colombia and Venezuela were arrested in raids on two homes, one in the capital Lima and another in the neighboring city of Huaral. In addition to weapons and explosives, police discovered around 100 stickers depicting an eagle with a swastika, an emblem of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler. Investigators found an oil painting of late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar with a wad of dollars sticking out of his shirt pocket. Police chief Juan Mundaca said the authorities were investigating whether the stickers were the same as those that appeared on the homes and cars of extortion victims. Prosecutor Jose Silva said the gang had threatened business owners in the Huaral area, as well as a judge. Peru is battling a steep surge in gang violence, characterized by a wave of killings linked to extortion rackets. Criminal gangs such as Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, which operates across Latin America, are accused of holding entire communities to ransom and of gunning down people who refuse to pay protection money. This is not the first time that criminal gangs in the Andean nation have been caught using Nazi symbols. In May 2023, police seized 58 kilograms of cocaine bricks destined for Belgium which were wrapped in a Nazi flag and stamped with Hitler's name. © 2025 AFP
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
New York is a safer, happier city now mass deportations have begun
'Let's be clear: I'm not standing in the way. I'm collaborating,' said New York City mayor Eric Adams on Fox News earlier this year. Adams, a Democrat now running for re-election as an independent, was sitting jovially next to Tom Homan, President Trump's 'border tsar'. Homan had already begun to oversee a near-total reversal of the Biden administration's porous border policies and the mass deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States. Adams had good reason to be friendly with Homan. However much other Democrats might complain, the migrant crackdown has been to the enormous benefit of beleaguered New York. The city has faced some of the sharpest consequences of open borders – including Tren de Aragua gang members operating openly in Times Square. The Adams and Homan pow-wow was nevertheless a reversal. Adams, elected mayor in 2021, had campaigned for election on a promise to maintain New York's self-proclaimed status as a 'sanctuary city', a classification adopted by Leftist-controlled municipalities to declare that they will not cooperate with federal authorities in efforts to enforce immigration laws or detain and deport illegal immigrants. 'We should protect our immigrants. Period,' Adams defiantly posted to Twitter at the time, before proceeding as mayor to oversee vast benefit programmes for illegal immigrants. Four years on, everything has changed. Absorbing about 200,000 migrants into New York City in just a few years correlated with sharply rising crime rates, inflicted billions of dollars in budget-breaking public expense, and placed a massive strain on the city's resources. By September 2023, less than two years into Adams's mayoralty, he declared that the migrant problem 'will destroy New York City'. Shortly thereafter, he and some of his top aides were placed under investigation by the Biden administration's Justice Department over allegations that he had accepted bribes and engaged in fraud, conspiracy, and campaign finance violations. A year later, just weeks before the 2024 presidential election, those investigations yielded a criminal indictment of Adams, who pleaded not guilty and publicly maintained that the charges were politically motivated because of his changing stance on illegal immigration. Adams found a ready ally in Trump, who crossed party lines to criticise the mayor's prosecution as a manifestation of the same 'lawfare' tactics he alleged were used against him. The Trump administration's Justice Department later dropped the charges against Adams. But that is politics. What most Americans will care more about are the practical consequences of President Trump's policies – and New York certainly feels like it's become a safer and more pleasant city in the months since his election. The increasingly pro-Trump mayor has used his office to assist federal authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and stepped up anti-crime measures, now led by police commissioner Jessica Tisch, a former counterterrorism official whom Adams appointed two weeks after Trump was re-elected last November. Just eight days into the second Trump administration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem donned tactical gear and joined a predawn raid in New York against illegal immigrants accused of crime and gang involvement. When Adams appeared alongside Homan on Fox, the mayor and Trump's immigration enforcer hailed their agreement to allow federal agents to enter Rikers Island prison, where many illegal immigrant criminal suspects are believed to be held. This measure, Homan said, heralded many more axes of cooperation. In early April, Adams welcomed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for a city subway ride, just weeks after the latter had threatened to withhold federal funds if its crime rates did not improve. According to the NYPD's latest weekly statistics, crime already appears to be on a downward path, with 6.14 per cent fewer criminal complaints for the most serious offences compared to the same period in 2024. For the first quarter as a whole, the department announced what it described as 'historic reductions' in overall crime, with subway crime down to its second lowest level in 27 years. This is hardly surprising: according to NYPD data released earlier in the month, a population of about 3,200 illegal immigrants residing in city shelters accounted for nearly 5,000 arrests across 2023 and 2024, including over 500 for violent assaults. Many of those offenders are now almost certainly in detention or back in their home countries, while further criminal recruits can no longer get across the southern border. In a sign of the changing times, several major migrant housing facilities in New York have closed, with some, including the once-iconic Roosevelt Hotel, since receiving bids for high-end redevelopment. According to the New York Legal Assistance Group, a nonprofit organisation that says it 'fights for fair and equal access to justice for those who need it most', over 250,000 foreign individuals in New York State are currently under deportation orders. Across the city, signs of life are blooming again after many dismal years. In a place where 'defund the police' was once a pillar of public policy, teams of alert and highly professional NYPD officers are again a common sight on the streets and in the subway. The theatres are full. Rents are rising. Trump, a native New Yorker, vowed during the campaign to restore the city to its former glory. It still has a long way to go, but if it has a renaissance it will be thanks to a Democrat-turned-Independent with the courage – or compulsion – to govern as a Republican in line with Trump's winning immigration policies. Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
