Washington – A new intelligence assessment of the United States did not find coordination between Aragua Train and the Venezuelan government, which contradicts the statements that Trump administration officials have done to justify their invocation of the invocation of the Alien enemies act and deport Venezuelan migrantsAccording to US officials.
The classified evaluation of the National Intelligence Council, published this month, is more comprehensive and authorized than a previous intelligence product published on February 26 and informed last month by the New York Times, according to two US officials familiar with the evaluation. They were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The new evaluation presents contributions from the 18 agencies that comprise the intelligence community. He repeatedly declared that Aragua trainA gang that originated in a prison in Venezuela, is not coordinated or supported by the president of the country, Nicolás Maduro, or senior officials of the Venezuelan government. While the evaluation found a minimum contact between some gang members and the low -level members of the Venezuelan government, there was a consensus that there was no coordination or directive paper between gangs and government.
The evaluation provided support and a wide supply for these statements, according to officials. Of the 18 organizations that make up the intelligence community of the United States government, only one, the FBI, did not agree with the findings.
It is not uncommon for intelligence agencies to differ in their evaluations in matters of great public interest. But the last evaluation was significant for almost unanimity.
Several years ago, under former director Christopher Wray, the FBI evaluated that the Covid-19 pandemic probably originated from a laboratory leak, although that was not the uniform consensus. The position obtained the recent support of a declassified CIA evaluation in January.
The White House and the Tulsi Gabbard office, director of National Intelligence, did not respond to the messages looking for comments on Thursday night.
The findings of the intelligence evaluation are like The Supreme Court last week ruled That the Trump administration can use the Alien Enemies Law, a law of 1798 in times of war, to deport Venezuelan migrants, but that migrants must obtain judicial hearings before they are taken from the United States.
Aragua Train has been linked to a series of kidnappings, extortion and other crimes throughout the western hemisphere. These activities are linked to a massive exodus of millions of Venezuelans as the economy of their country was unraveled in the last decade.
The alien enemies law was created to give the president broad powers to imprison and deport non -citizens in time of war. Until now, only three times has been used, more recently eight decades ago during World War II to justify the arrest of Japanese-American civilians.
The American Union of Civil Liberties, which has presented legal challenges to the use of the Trump Administration Law, argues that Trump does not have the authority to use the Alien enemies law against a criminal gang instead of a recognized state.
President Donald Trump invoked the law in March, declaring in a proclamation that Tren de Aragua “is closely aligned and, in fact, the Maduro regime has been infiltrated, including his military and police apparatus.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi repeated that statement on Monday night in an interview in Fox News Channel. Bondi defended the invocation of the War Law and called the Train of Aragua “a foreign arm of the Venezuelan government.”
“They are organized. They have a command structure. And they have invaded our country,” he said.
Last month, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Law to fly more than 130 men accused of being members of the gang to El Salvador, where the United States has paid for men to be held in a notorious prison. Venezuelans deported under the law did not receive the opportunity to challenge orders, and the lawyers of many of the men have said that there is no evidence that they are gang members.
The Trump administration has argued that the gang has become an invasive force and has designated it, along with seven other crimes groups, such as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
The last intelligence evaluation was first reported Thursday by The Washington Post.
___
Associated Press writers, David Klepper and Eric Tucker, contributed to this report.
