US-Venezuela: The Implications of FTO Designations for Due Process
Introduction
Since both President Nicolas Maduro and President Donald Trump have taken executive office in their respective countries in January 2025, the hostility between Venezuela and the United States has intensified to a dangerous point in both domestic and foreign affairs. The antagonism is structured by President Trump’s bolstering of national security in the face of a perceived “terrorist” threat from narcotic trafficking syndicates, which he associates with Latinx migrants.
This aligns with the current US federal administration’s broader plan to “protect the American people against [an] invasion” of undocumented immigration. The language in Executive Order 14159 illustrates the perspective held regarding the issue of immigration security. The federal executive frames undocumented immigrants as “threats to national security and public safety,” connected to increased crime and terror-related activities in American communities. Enforcement of immigration laws is no longer a litigious process, but a necessary measure the government must ruthlessly utilize to maintain the American way of life against this “invasion of illegal aliens.”
On February 20, 2025, the adversarial positioning taken by the United States towards Venezuela entered a new political context when Venezuelan cartel Tren de Aragua (TdA) was formally designated as a “foreign terrorist organization (FTO).” The criminal activity TdA engages in has been deemed as “terrorist activity” which threatens the security of the US, using the broad definitions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and Foreign Relations Authorization Act (FRAA). Synthesizing both statutes, specific violent crimes, such as hijackings, which TdA engages in as a criminal organization, are deemed to be “premeditated, politically motivated [acts of] violence.” The shockwaves this designation has had have reverberated through our judicial system, impacting the litigation of both domestically detained Venezuelan immigrants, and most recently, legally and ethically questionable military strikes in international waters. Prior to addressing these issues in the following analysis, it is crucial to understand the misrepresentation of crime perpetuated by the US in regards to Venezuela, which underpin corresponding social and political issues.
Despite claims from Trump himself connecting the Venezuelan government to TdA, US intelligence has yet to implicate President Maduro or Venezuelan state officials in any ongoing trafficking or criminal activity. However, this does little to combat the stigma of a ‘narco-state’ which swirls around the Venezuelan government, giving the appearance of an official state bought and controlled by illegal drug money. This only further conflates the US government’s approaches to organized crime with those used to approach foreign political violence and terrorism.
Although similarities exist in both organisational structure and operation, the social upheaval caused by criminal organization violence in contrast to terrorist organizations pose significant differences in intent. This difference in intent requires distinct responses from law enforcement and government agencies in order to appropriately maintain public safety. The motivations driving terrorists are inherently ideological, with the end goal of effectuating systemic political change. Here lies the key separation between terror and criminal groups. Cartels and criminal organizations are not interested in directly changing political systems, but subverting and manipulating the system in place to the cartel’s profitable advantage.
Misrepresenting crime as terrorism is ultimately counterproductive to the mitigation of violence. The political implications of terrorist violence beg questions criminal violence simply does not. Questions about ideology, constituency, and end goal, address the motivations of violence perpetuated by FTOs. When these questions are answered by intelligence agencies, this allows for a proportionate and just response to terrorist violence. Conversely, active drug trafficking organizations do not have these motivating factors driving their crime. Violence is primarily utilized to instill economic stability for the cartel, not incite political instability. By purposefully ignoring distinctions in intention, blurring social and political violence, the approach the US government implements in response to TdA further distorts counterterrorism measures with crime control measures. As the following sections will discuss, this distortion will justify future supersession of due process, given the political stigma of terror.
The Legal Consequences of “FTO” Designations for Venezuelans in the US
Starting in January, the US became intent on diminishing temporary protected status (TPS), revoking TPS from 600,000 Venezuelans living within the United States. The action, sanctioned by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was immediately challenged, with the order being held as unlawful in the District Court for the Northern District of CA. However, since dual USC rulings in Noem v. National TPS Alliance I & II (2025), the DHS has been granted their emergency request for TPS revocation for over 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants. This has increased these people’s exposure to immigration enforcement procedures, supported by the prioritization of detainment and deportation of immigrants under EO 14159.
Following the FTO Designation for Tren de Aragua, the targeting of Venezuelans in the US was compounded. Any non-US citizen with connections to the FTO, as preliminarily as “providing material support or resources” is considered an "inadmissible alien,” and subject to immediate deportation. Without “substantive constitutional restraints,” the discretion the US executive branch retains over immigration enforcement is left largely unmitigated. This allows for political actors to establish “disproportionate, retroactive laws” without proactive judicial action. In this circumstance, this resulted in the mass deportation of Venezuelan immigrants alleged to be connected to TdA from the US, to the CECOT prison in El Salvador.
The procedures for this removal of Venezuelan migrants has been contested in the courts continuously, resulting in another reactive opinion from the USC in J.G.G v. Trump (2025). Rather than confronting the issue of removal head on, the USC remanded the issue. The contestation of removal to El Salvador for Venezuelan migrants must be heard in the federal district court they were each confined in to seek relief. This has returned a degree of discretion to federal judges in determining appropriate immigration enforcement dispositions. In Washington D.C., the decision has allowed for a federal judge to overturn the removal of 130 Venezuelan men. By doing so, the courts combat the improper conflation of counterterrorism, crime control, and immigration enforcement.
In rendering his decision, Chief Judge James Boasberg of the US-DC for the District Columbia held the deportations to be unlawful under multiple standards. Finding petitioner Frengel Reyes Mota, amongst other Venezuelan noncitizens, had been wrongfully removed without “constitutionally adequate opportunity” to contest their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. Relief was ordered through the government’s provision of habeas corpus for the petitioner. In addition, Judge Boasberg criticizes the lack of “significant evidence” connecting many of those deported and imprisoned in the CECOT to TdA.
The clear lack of due process for Venezuelan petitioners during legal proceedings can be directly attributed to political stigma of combatting terror attached to punitive immigration procedures. Debate over just counterterrorism measures in the US ebb and flow in preserving and curbing civil liberties, such as due process, in the face of terrorist violence. When these “unique threats” pose significant risk to our quality of life, “sacrificing liberties” is thought to be a fair exchange in the promotion of security and public safety. What this sentiment overlooks is the “narrow sense” in which violating constitutional civil protections is effective. Forcing convictions and deportations without due process, based on “frivolous accusations” connecting Venezuelan defendants to an FTO, not only wastes resources, but damages government credibility and public trust. In time, this will undermine the capacity the government has to conduct effective operations in both counterterrorism and immigration enforcement, contradicting any arguments “curtailing civil liberties will do more good than harm.”
How “FTO” Designations Have Escalated to Justify Militant Action
Outside of the domestic impacts of the US’ ‘FTO’ designation of Tren de Aragua, the designation has been used to justify the most volatile of counter-immigration measures; naval military strikes against Venezuelan vessels alleged to be drug traffickers in Caribbean waters. The US justification of militant response to crime comes as a direct result of distorting law enforcement in response to trafficking as armed political conflict. Starting on August 15, 2025, 4,000 marines, manning nuclear submarines, destroyers, and surveillance aircraft, were deployed in a coordinated “anti-narcotic” offensive. The first casualties from this campaign came on September 2. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized naval strikes against suspected drug trafficker vessels near the coast of Venezuela, killing 11 people on board. When asked about the killings, Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified hawkish antiterrorist action, as “stopping them is not enough.” Since then, 21 subsequent attacks have followed, resulting in the deaths of at least 83 people through November, 2025.
The killing of suspected traffickers who pose no imminent threat without due process is murder, and illegal under both US and international law. However, because drug trafficking is being framed as a weapon of political violence, the sinking of Venezuelan vessels was framed as legal self-defense against terror. Recently, human rights advocates, including Amnesty International, have condemned Tres de Aragua FTO designation as improper under the “international definition of an armed group.” Other legal experts argue even if the FTO designation were legitimate, military action taken against an FTO still requires Congressional authorization, as seen in the US response to Al Qaeda following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Under pressure following the attacks, the US designation of TdA as an FTO as a justification for militant action has received increased legal scrutiny. Two separate resolutions were proposed in the House of Representatives which sought to have the Executive authorize the continuance of their naval campaign against Venezuela through Congress. In December, both bills had been narrowly halted by GOP lawmakers. Both an attempt to block military strikes “against designated terrorist organizations” in the West, and prohibition of further action “within or against” Venezuela were both dismissed, reaffirming executive authority. Furthering the Trump administration’s campaign against “narco-terrorism” without explicit Congressional authorization will continue to leave the US open to questions of international law violations.
Conclusion
The intentional mischaracterization of crime and immigration as terrorism threatens long term public safety. By framing drug trafficking as political violence, the US has been able to divert their actions from being held to the standards of both criminal processing and immigration enforcement. The legal consequences of designating Tren de Aragua an FTO have continued to escalate, curtailing due process for Venezuelan immigrants in the name of ‘counterterrorism.’ In the US, the federal courts capacity to contest potential violations of legal proceedings is fragmented. This limits their ability to provide uniform habeas relief to the over 600,000 Venezuelan citizens living across the United States, who are especially vulnerable to deportation after the revocation of TPS. Internationally, blurring the distinction between organized crime and terrorism has in turn produced greater political violence. The US has permitted the killing of 81 potential ‘criminals’ in Caribbean waters on suspicion of crime alone, without Congressional authorization. Not only does this signal a shift in unilateral executive authority, it suggests to other political actors proactive state violence is justifiable when conducted as ‘counterterrorism.’
Crime control is an issue of law enforcement, utilizing a balance of coordinated policing methods, constitutional prosecutions, and lawful sentencing dispositions. This balance is completely overturned when implementing counterterrorism measures. Skirting violations of civil rights and due process, these measures are intended to be considered only when a severe enough threat is posed to the US. By militarizing law enforcement, as well as politicizing legal protections in the courts, we risk further normalizing the government’s authority to enact exceptional and violent sanctions with impunity. Without being able to question what the threats these sanctions are a response to, the rights of the accused are no longer guaranteed, and contingent on the political motives, rather than legal precedent.
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