“Tattoos are typically related to the Venezuelan culture and not a definite [indicator] of being a member or associate of the [TdA],” reads a 2023 “Situational Awareness” bulletin.
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Federal agents have been sweeping up Venezuelan migrants and transporting them to a Salvadoran prison based in large part on tattoos depicting stopwatches, Michael Jordan logos and other ink art they claim betrays an allegiance to the Tren de Aragua street gang.
But internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI documents obtained by USA TODAY reveal federal authorities for years have questioned the effectiveness of using tattoos to identify members of Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA.
“Gang Unit collections determined that the Chicago Bulls attire, clocks, and rose tattoos are typically related to the Venezuelan culture and not a definite [indicator] of being a member or associate of the [TdA],” reads a 2023 “Situational Awareness” bulletin on the criminal gang authored by U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s El Paso Sector Intelligence Unit.
In another DHS document, titled “ICE Intel Leads,” a former Venezuelan police official interviewed by authorities said tattoos are “the easiest but least effective way” of identifying members of the criminal gang.
The internal documents, provided exclusively to USA TODAY by the open government advocacy group Property of the People, come as pressure mounts on the Trump administration for refusing to provide information about the arrest and expulsion of hundreds of Venezuelans they claim are TdA members. The group requested the documents under open records laws.
Attorneys for the detained migrants have said their clients have been swept up without due process and have been labeled as gang members with flimsy evidence.
“The administration is sending individuals to one of the worst prisons in the world, potentially for the rest of their lives, without any due process, even an opportunity for them to show that their tattoos have nothing to do with the gang,” Lee Gelernt, an ACLU lawyer and lead counsel in the challenge to the federal government’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, told USA TODAY.
In response to USA TODAY’s request for comment, a White House official said Homeland Security’s “assessments go beyond tattoos, but we cannot get into intelligence matters that can compromise our operations.”
Tren de Aragua: Terrorist group or low-level criminal gang?
Tren de Aragua had been a growing concern for immigration officials in recent years, the documents show.
They recount the organization’s growth from a prison gang in the central state of Aragua that spread to neighboring countries before arriving to the U.S. among the recent waves of Venezuelan migrants.
But law enforcement officials interviewed by USA TODAY last fall described a much different group – one trying to establish a foothold, whose ranks are thin and whose activities in the U.S. pale in comparison to more established criminal groups, such as Mara Salvatrucha, known as MS-13.
They said they had arrested members of Tren de Aragua in connection with crimes including brazen retail thefts, moped muggings in New York City and a jewelry heist in Denver.
President Donald Trump’s administration has painted Tren de Aragua as a highly organized foreign terrorist organization infiltrating the country “aided and facilitated” by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, involved in “violent acts, including kidnapping, assault and murder.”
The documents received by USA TODAY make similar claims but details about Tren de Aragua’s purported activity point to patterns of sporadic violent acts and mostly small time-dealing and theft.
One document, a National Gang Intelligence Center bulletin dated March 2024, claims Tren de Aragua members are “likely increasing their presence and involvement in criminal activity” in the United States and says the group has been involved in “homicide, extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, human smuggling, fraud, drug, and weapons trafficking.”
But the document outlines just three criminal incidents involving alleged members of the gang: An Aug. 2023 arrest of three individuals with alleged TdA gang tattoos who were shoplifting; a Nov. 2023 shooting by another alleged gang member where a victim was shot in the leg at a party attended by “several other Venezuelan nationals;” and the Miami-area murder last year of a former Venezuelan police officer by alleged gang members.
Estimates place TdA’s origins around 2014, said Rebecca Hanson, a University of Florida assistant professor of sociology, criminology and Latin American studies who co-edited the 2022 book, “The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela.” The gang started as an organizing structure for men imprisoned during a period of mass incarceration that began under former President Hugo Chavez, Hanson told USA TODAY.
It then evolved out of prisons into neighborhoods, Hanson said. As people fled Venezuela by the millions amid violence, instability and corruption under Maduro, the gang grew into a structured criminal group that indulged in a variety of crimes.
Throughout the documents, which are not an exhaustive catalog of the government’s intelligence on TdA, law enforcement officials refer to news articles and “open source” evidence to substantiate claims about the group’s spread.
Those sources include Wikipedia entries on Maduro and Venezuela’s minister of interior, Diosdado Cabello.
Justice Department officials have repeatedly declined to give a federal judge information about the two flights of Venezuelan deportees – who they say are TdA members – sent to El Salvador earlier this month, after the Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Officials have also declined to release a list of the people sent to El Salvador, where they face indefinite incarceration, citing the state-secrets privilege.
At a White House briefing Monday, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, restated his confidence in ICE’s ability to identify Tren de Aragua members.
“The highest officials at ICE have said they are confident every one of the men and women on those planes were members of TdA,” he told reporters. “I can tell you hundreds and hundreds of hours were spent on investigations.”
Tattoos: Gang markers or popular art?
Photos in the DHS documents depict tattoos believed to be associated with Tren de Aragua, including the Jordan “jumpman” logo, trains, clocks, crowns, gas masks and the phrase “Real Hasta La Muerte” (Real Until Death) in cursive lettering.
But lawyers and experts claim many of those tattoos are popular among Venezuelan nationals with no ties to the criminal gang.
Unlike other Latin American gangs, Tren de Aragua doesn’t require its members to get tattoos, Ronna Risquez, a Venezuelan journalist who authored a book about the gang, told the Associated Press.
Tattoos are common in Venezuela, particularly among young people. They can connect with basketball or hip hop. The “Real Hasta La Muerte,” tattoo, for example, is a slogan used by the reggaeton artist Anuel AA and adopted by many Venezuelans.
Family members and advocates say officials are rounding up members of an entire nationality without regard for their rights, often picking men with tattoos memorializing soccer teams, family members and their professions ― not a dangerous gang.
Miami-based attorney, Martin Rosenow said one of his clients, Franco José Caraballo, was arrested by ICE in Dallas on Feb. 9 and flown to El Salvador.
Rosenow said he’s spoken to three other Venezuelan nationals – including one nationalized U.S. citizen – in Miami since Caraballo’s disappearance. All of them had stopwatch tattoos – a popular cultural trend in Venezuela, he said.
“It’s a gross violation of everything we stand for in this country, from a constitutional process,” he said. “Not to mention human rights.”
In November, ICE officials told USA TODAY they had arrested fewer than 30 people with TdA connections – two on criminal charges and the rest on immigration infractions. The agency has referred another 100 people to an FBI “watch list” for further review.
Separately, according to DHS, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border 27 people in fiscal 2024 and 41 people in fiscal 2023 with Tren de Aragua gang affiliation.
USA TODAY White House correspondent Bart Jansen and national reporter Eduardo Cuevas contributed to this report.
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