Officials in Texas on Monday designated a Venezuelan gang called the Tren de Aragua as a "foreign terrorist group" and endorsed former President Donald Trump's baseless claim that many migrants crossing into the United States were released from prisons in Latin America.
The Tren de Aragua is an international criminal organization that operates in several Latin American countries and engages in extortion, homicide, drug trafficking and smuggling of people, authorities say.
Because of a political and economic crisis in Venezuela, many people from that country are allowed to enter the United States and apply for asylum.
But Texas's top border official, Mike Banks, argued that Venezuela "has released prisoners with one condition: you leave Venezuela and don't come back."
He said the administration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is encouraging such people to come to the United States with what Banks called an open border policy.
Harris is running against Trump in November's presidential election.
Immigration advocates present a very different picture, asserting that the Biden administration has harshly cracked down on the border with undue restrictions on people wishing to cross and seek asylum.
Appearing at the same news conference as Banks, Gov. Greg Abbott formally declared Tren de Aragua a "foreign terrorist organization."
That allows the authorities to go after the gang under a beefed up anti-terrorism law and also allows for the creation of a task force assigned specifically to fight the group.
Trump said Friday that if he becomes president, he will order large-scale deportations of migrants, beginning in Ohio and Colorado.
The vow came on the heels of his debate with Harris earlier in the week, when he made the debunked claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating residents' pet dogs and cats.
Trump said Friday he's going to send those migrants "back to Venezuela," although most of the migrants in Springfield are Haitian.
Springfield has had to step up security due to threats being made as the viral, false claims about Haitian immigrants continue to circulate after being amplified by Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
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