President Trump’s Homeland Security Task Forces have arrested 1,296 Tren de Aragua gang members nationwide, according to new federal data released Thursday.

The 1,296 arrests did not come from one dramatic raid. They are the result of a sustained campaign running from January 20, 2025, through October 8, 2026—and they show what happens when the federal government stops treating a bloodthirsty foreign gang like somebody else’s problem.

Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, public domain; faithfully cropped and color-enhanced.

The administration says nearly 350 Tren de Aragua members and associates have also been charged with federal crimes. The arrest total reaches far beyond a single city or border sector, with task forces encountering gang members across almost every state.

Homeland Security put the scale of the operation in blunt terms:

ADVERTISEMENT

The White House said the administration launched the Homeland Security Task Forces in 2025 with the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department to identify, find, and remove criminal rings embedded in American communities.

Officials described the effort as the largest federal campaign against transnational crime in U.S. history. They said its targets include Tren de Aragua networks tied to murder, sex trafficking, kidnapping, drug and weapons trafficking, robbery, theft, and financial crime.

The White House also connected the task-force model to the nationwide drop in violent crime since 2025. The operation is designed to attack whole networks—their people, money, logistics, and leadership—instead of waiting for the next victim and treating every arrest as an isolated case.

The federal numbers tell the story: this gang did not stay at the border, and neither did the consequences of Biden’s border disaster.

The Washington Examiner, which first obtained the task-force data, reported that President Trump created the operation to dismantle gangs, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations that had been able to spread through U.S. communities.

The report said ICE has encountered Tren de Aragua members in almost every state. It also detailed why screening became so difficult during the Biden years: hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans crossed the southern border while Venezuela did not provide U.S. agents with the criminal-history data they needed to identify every dangerous entrant.

With detention space strained and Venezuela refusing many repatriations, large numbers were released into the country. The Trump administration changed that posture, increased enforcement capacity, and made dismantling the gang a national mission.

One recent case shows how far the network reached beyond street violence.

The Justice Department announced earlier this month that Anibal Alexander Canelon Aguirre, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader known as “Prometheus” and “The Engineer,” was captured and brought before a federal court in Nebraska.

ADVERTISEMENT

Prosecutors accuse Canelon Aguirre of helping develop malware used to force ATMs to dispense cash. The alleged jackpotting conspiracy targeted or struck machines in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and several foreign countries, and 120 defendants have been charged in Nebraska alone.

He pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracies to commit bank fraud, launder money, and provide material support to terrorists. He remains detained while the case proceeds, and the charges are allegations that must be proved in court.

The national arrest figure puts that case in context. The Trump administration is not chasing headlines one suspect at a time; it is using a coordinated federal structure to break apart a transnational organization wherever it surfaces.

For years, Americans were told to accept the consequences of an open border as if nothing could be done. These numbers prove the opposite.

When the government is ordered to put American safety first, coordinate its agencies, follow the money, and hunt down the leadership, even a gang that spread across the country can be put on the run.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.