U.S. intelligence memo says Venezuelan government does not control Tren De Aragua gang.

The U.S. intelligence community says it does not believe Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro directs Tren de Aragua (TDA), a criminal gang that operates in the U.S. in a newly declassified, redacted memo. The memo contradicts claims by President Trump, who has accused Maduro of controlling the gang, which Trump says is invading the U.S. The government has relied on this argument to justify the deportation of alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.

The memo also undercuts some of the government’s claims about the power and reach of the group. It says TDA is “decentralized” and notes that it’s “highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.”

Since campaigning for his second term, Trump has portrayed Tren de Aragua as a serious threat to American public safety. His administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th century law, to swiftly deport some 137 alleged gang members to a detention center in El Salvador with no due process. The act, which allows the government to remove citizens if there is an invasion into U.S. territory, has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

In late March, prior to the declassification of the memo, the New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had “circulated findings” contradicting the Trump administration’s claims about Tren de Aragua. At the time, the Justice Department said it was launching a criminal investigation into what it described as a “selective leak of inaccurate, but nevertheless classified” intelligence about Tren de Aragua, saying it would not “tolerate politically motivated efforts by the Deep State to undercut President Trump’s agenda.”