(The Center Square) – A hotel in El Paso, Texas, has been shut down for harboring violent illegal border crossers, including Venezuelan Tren De Aragua prison gang members.
El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez sued Gateway Hotel, owned by Gigante Enterprises LLC and Howard Yun, a South Korean immigrant, for allegedly violating multiple public nuisance laws and endangering the community.
The lawsuit was filed in El Paso County 120th District Court and asked the court to issue an injunction to shut down the hotel, according to the complaint. A judge granted her request on Monday; occupants had until Thursday to vacate the premises.
Gateway Hotel’s recent history is dubious. It’s previous owner was convicted on smuggling and money laundering charges in 2011; the city condemned the building in 2014. It remained vacant until Yun received a conditional certificate of occupancy in 2018.
The hotel has operated for six years without a valid certificate of occupancy in violation of city requirements, the lawsuit states. In the last two years, there were 693 service calls made indicating “habitual criminal activity … that contributes to the overall blight this business brings to downtown El Paso,” the complaint states.
Surveillance footage accompanied the complaint appearing to show “at least one gun being shot, another used to threaten, men holding knives and another man with a hatchet assaulting people and causing damage to the hotel in front of a security guard.”
The type of crimes allegedly committed on the property include narcotics trafficking, aggravated assault, criminal trespass, assaultive conduct/fights, two terroristic threats, criminal mischief, arson, theft, burglary, prostitution, among others, the complaint states.
The El Paso Fire Department attested to “habitual criminal activity, trash and fire hazards;” the El Paso Police Department to “an increase of suspected gang members using the property” and “continuous incidents of criminal activity” that increased “with the introduction of the Tren De Aragua organization into the hotel.”
One officer’s affidavit states hotel management “is negligently allowing gang activity to infiltrate the area;” “allowing illegal activity (consuming drugs, gang activity, illegal dumping);” and will “continue to threaten public safety if allowed to conduct ‘business as usual.’”
Sanchez’s Nuisance Abatement Team files civil lawsuits “to mitigate and/or combat common and public nuisances occurring on properties,” including crimes like “prostitution, human trafficking, drug trafficking, narcotics related crimes, crimes involving firearms, robbery, massage therapy code violations, alcohol violations and other various aggravated crimes,” her office explains. “The purpose of a nuisance abatement lawsuit is not to charge a person with a crime, but rather prove that the business/property owner allowed the illegal activity to occur on their property and failed to make reasonable attempts to stop it.”
The El Paso ruling comes as Tren de Aragua gang members have infiltrated apartment complexes and hotels and committed a range of violent crimes nationwide. They’ve been released into the U.S. by the Biden-Harris administration after illegally entering the country and through a new CHNV parole program created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Since fiscal 2021, a record number of Venezuelan illegal border crossers have been reported, nearly 856,000 – the greatest number in U.S. history.
Another 115,000 Venezuelans were granted parole through the CHNV program. The overwhelming majority are single military age adults, according to CBP data.
The CHNV program has been directly linked to perpetrators committing violent crimes against Americans; Tren de Aragua gang members are being arrested nationwide, The Center Square has reported.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has demanded answers from the Biden-Harris administration about how many criminal Venezuelans have been released into the U.S. and why.
“The Biden administration has full knowledge that prisoners from other countries are making their way into the United States through our wide-open border,” Moody said in March before the Venezuelan gangs made recent national news. She wants to know why “the Biden administration is releasing criminal illegal aliens in U.S. prisons directly into the interior, rather than deporting them back to their country of origin.”
Also in March, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, both Florida Republicans and Cuban Americans, warned, “Tren de Aragua is an invading criminal army from a prison in Venezuela that has spread their brutality and chaos to U.S. cities and small towns. If left unchecked, they will unleash an unprecedented reign of terror, mirroring the devastation it has already inflicted in communities throughout Central and South America, most prominently in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. The breadth of Tren de Aragua’s operations encompasses murder, drug and human trafficking, sex crimes, extortion, and kidnapping, among other brutalities.”
The U.S. Department of State has designated the gang, which began in the Tocorón Prison in Aragua, Venezuela, as a transnational criminal organization. It’s offering up to $12 million in rewards for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions of its leaders who are believed to be in Columbia and Venezuela.
