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In a recent podcast, Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall alleged that violent Venezuelan gangs were entering the United States under the Biden administration’s immigration policy.
“We are seeing more of the Haitian side of the numbers, at least right now in Alabama. But yet, you’re hearing the stories about Venezuelan gangs. They, by the way, make MS-13 look like choir boys,” Marshall said. “And those are now something that very much is on the radar of law enforcement.”
Marshall’s comments mirror now-debunked conspiracy theories spread by former President Donald Trump that Venezuelan gangs had “took over large sections of a town, large sections of an area of Colorado.”
Trump’s remarks came after surveillance video from an apartment complex in Aurora, CO drew media attention, showing a group of armed men — apparently members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang — roaming the halls before entering an apartment. However, according to reporting by The Denver Post, “Aurora and Denver police… say the gang’s numbers are not large and they operate in isolated areas. Others say the Tren de Aragua presence in Aurora, a city of nearly 400,000 people, has been overhyped.”
“There’s this hysteria that we apparently have a gang problem, but what we have is a slumlord problem in the city of Aurora,” said Aurora City Councilwoman Alison Coombs. Officials like Coombs attribute the poor conditions of these apartment buildings to poor oversight by the property management company rather than gang activity.
Residents at the apartments have even openly expressed that they are far more concerned with the poor living conditions they experience as a result of mismanagement by the buildings’ “slumlord” owners than they are with gang members. “They say there are gangs and criminals, but the only criminal here is the owner,” one of the residents, Moises Didenot, told reporters in September.
Aurora interim police Chief Heather Morris even had to make it clear that residents are not paying rent to gang members in face of conspiracy theories alleging the contrary. Crime in Aurora has actually experienced a significant decrease this year, despite claims that the influx in Venezuelan asylum-seekers has made the city more dangerous. Overall reported crime in Aurora was down 20 percent in the first eight months of 2024 when compared to the same period in 2023.
However, even as communities like Aurora work to fight against the mischaracterization of their Venezuelan neighbors, Attorney General Marshall is doubling down on claims that violent immigrants are flooding into the country. Marshall even alleged that these “Venezuelan gangs” are simply flying into the country apparently as a result of the Biden administration’s Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV), which has expanded asylum access for refugees from the listed countries.
“It’s a huge waiting list. And remember, these are folks who don’t have to show up at a border crossing to declare the reason why. They’re doing it through an app. They’re flying over here in an airplane, going through certain destinations,” Marshall told 1819 News.
Marshall had previously called claims that Haitian immigrants were overwhelming communities in Alabama, “a legitimate concern”. Haitian refugees have also been the recent victims of widely-debunked conspiracy theories alleging that they are eating their neighbors’ pets. Former President Trump played a role in propogating those misconceptions as well.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said during September’s presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also partook in spreading the conspiracy before later admitting that he knew the stories were fabricated. Vance told CNN that he was willing “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people.”
Although he began his comments by insinuating that Venezuelan refugees were dangerous gang members, Marshall then went on to paint the asylum-seekers not as dangerous criminals, but as vulnerable populations who would potentially be placed in danger themselves by coming to the United States.
“[T]his is not fair to those individuals that are coming over from Haiti and other places, because if a sponsor is not there to be able to take care of them, what are they? They’re left on their own,” Marshall said. “They don’t speak the language. They don’t understand where to go or what to do. And then they are left potentially to deal with people that aren’t there for good reasons, but instead to be able to take advantage of them.”
However, Marshall was quick to indicate that he did not believe that expending resources to ease the societal and cultural transition for these refugees would be a good idea.
“When we have these broader concerns about the welfare of those that are being brought into this country, that’s somehow and other dismissed. And I don’t think at all that’s lost on the people that are just simply saying, how can government do this to us without us even having knowledge to begin with?” Marshall continued. “Because there’s no doubt, I don’t think anybody can argue this, that if you’re brought in this country and you don’t speak the language, there are increased societal costs that will have to be expended to integrate you into society.”
Marshall’s comments leave it largely unclear as to what his true concern about the CHNV program is and what he thinks needs to be done in order to properly address that problem, whatever it may be.
