Adult men from overseas in designer clothes, smoking marijuana and passing flasks as they congregate outside New York City's crowded migrant shelters are among hundreds of thousands of new arrivals who crossed into the U.S. from the southern border and have made their way deeper into the country.
Only a small portion of them are suspects in a pattern of robberies victimizing dozens of women across the Big Apple, NYPD officials said at a press briefing last week announcing seven arrests.
Even fewer have ties to Tren de Aragua, or TdA, a foreign organized crime ring looking to plant roots in New York City.
But the relatively tiny group of bad actors is having an outsize impact on crime in the city, according to police leaders – especially when combined with New York's lenient bail laws.
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"In recent months, a wave of migrant crime has washed over our city, but by no means do the individuals committing these crimes represent the vast number of people coming to New York to build a better life," NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said during a news briefing announcing a series of arrests linked to an organized crime ring.
Many of the suspects live in the migrant shelter system, hidden among other migrants and asylum seekers, and recently arrived in the U.S., according to NYPD leaders. Caban compared them to ghosts — undocumented illegal immigrants with no phones, no social media and sometimes no known names or dates of birth.
One major shelter is the former Roosevelt Hotel on 45th Street, which closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Another is the Row NYC hotel in the heart of Broadway and just a block from Times Square.
Even among the criminal element, they're not just Venezuelan gangsters. Also this month, police in suburban Nassau County arrested a Palestinian migrant who they said took a bus from a city shelter and attacked a homeowner in a dispute over the victim's support for Israel.
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As groups of men loitered around the shelter entrances, families with children could be seen coming and going. Some of the migrants hid their faces behind masks or their hands. Others walked away from news cameras.
More than 170,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City, according to Mayor Eric Adams.
Historically speaking, more than half can be expected to eventually see their asylum claims denied, according to data compiled by researchers at Syracuse University. But until they're denied, many of them can be considered in the U.S. legally.
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As the NYPD aims to crack down on the criminal element, a new threat has emerged in the form of Tren de Aragua, or TdA, an organized crime ring that began in a Venezuelan prison and has been spreading into new territories since around 2018 – most recently on U.S. soil, where it is also believed to be recruiting.
While local reports have linked the gang to a pattern of violent phone and purse robberies involving thieves riding on powered scooters, at least two members of the organization are among a number of suspects charged in the gang assault of two NYPD officers outside the Amsterdam Theatre earlier this month.
Several of the suspects in that attack had prior charges. Most of them were released without bail even with the brawl with police recorded on surveillance video, showing people in the mob kicking officers in the head.
That assault was just steps away from one of the shelters. Not all of the suspects in the attack were Venezuelan, but at least two came to the U.S. illegally from that country and have ties to TdA, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is now holding them without bail in federal custody.
The NYPD has warned of pickpocketing, shoplifting and robberies tied to the group and other suspected criminals living in the migrant shelters.
Police now have a visible presence in the area and are also patrolling tourist hot spots next door, including Times Square and outside the city's Broadway theaters. They have already cracked down on illegal street markets, where vendors are suspected of selling stolen property.
According to the NYPD, TdA recently arrived in New York City and is attempting to establish itself and may commit or incite stabbings, assaults and robberies.
The gang is known to use gang symbols and code words, including emoji and images of trains and the Venezuelan flag on social media and to flaunt stolen property.
The "Tren" in its name is the Spanish word for train.
New York City robberies have risen more than 8% so far this year compared to 2023, according to police statistics.
Annual robberies dropped from a 35-year high of more than 100,000 in 1990 to lows of around 13,000 between 2017 and 2021. Then they jumped to 17,411 in 2022 and fell slightly to 16,910 in 2023.
