Tren de Aragua is here — stronger foreign policy is needed to end this threat

The mass deportation of illegal immigrants seems to be the solution for a huge crisis affecting the U.S. Despite this, criminals like Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang will continue to arrive in the country if the root causes of migration are not being addressed.

The dictatorships in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua have been playing a key role in creating the migration crisis. What happens in those countries has a direct impact on this crisis. Since 2023 the three regimes promoted a perfect strategy.

Cuba sent the people; the dictatorship of Venezuela provided the airline, CONVIASA, and Nicaragua facilitated the free route via the Managua Airport. This is how thousands of migrants began a massive exodus from there to the southern border of the U.S. This is not the natural migration of the old days, but a man-made crisis.

Venezuela uses migration as a weapon of extortion against the U.S. The Tren de Argua gang, linked to the Venezuelan dictatorship, has managed to penetrate 16 states in America with drugs and crime. It is a problem of national security but also of foreign policy.

Last July, a new economic crisis broke out in Cuba. Never-ending blackouts, accelerated currency devaluation, food shortages and brutal repression provided the perfect fuel for a rise in emigration.

Migration is a good source of income for tyrants. because more migrants mean more remittances for authoritarian governments. In 2023, Nicaragua received almost $5 billion in remittances, and a greater amount is expected by the end of this year.

The accelerated strategy implemented by Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua has caused devastating and visible effects in regions as far apart as South Texas, New York and Massachusetts. But in the short term, it will bring more remittances to those countries. That’s how you keep a dictatorship alive.

Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have successfully presented the false narrative that sanctions are the gasoline that drives migration. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the playbook still sells and sells well among some intellectuals and politicians.

Repression, exclusion and illicit enrichment of the ruling elites in Managua, Havana and Caracas are the main causes of forced and desperate emigration. Seven million Venezuelan exiles are living proof of this man-made tragedy.

According to the White House, the situation in Nicaragua and Venezuela "continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

Last year, the three dictatorships received Iran's former President, Ebrahim Raisi, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. These dictatorships also maintain a very close cooperation with China and diplomatic ties to North Korea.

Even though the announced mass deportation policy seeks to bring back law and order to the U.S. border, the foreign policy toward Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will continue to be paramount. Migration cannot be disconnected from national security and foreign policy.

Specific and clear attention is urgently needed towards these regimes, considered as an unusual and extraordinary threat to security. In accordance with this, a special undersecretariat should be created, providing specific attention and detailed monitoring of these regimes. An unusual problem requires an unusual response.

It would be critical to consider an economic and commercial strategy to press for significant changes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. This is not a good moment to remove sanctions in exchange for migrants. An agreement of this nature will solve only a temporary problem.

It its critical to assess and even suspend the privileges of the dictatorships that still enjoy the benefits of the international monetary system, U.S. dollars, tourism and free trade with the most powerful nation of the planet.

The immigration hemorrhage is a symptom of a much larger problem. This is the right time to fix it, before Tren de Aragua takes more innocent lives.

Arturo McFields is an exiled journalist, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS, former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps and the Security Seminar of the National Defense University.

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