VENEZUELAN GANG TREN DE ARAGUA (TDA) | CITY OF EL PASO, TX - NEGLIGENCE | THE HUMAN FACE OF THE GATEWAY HOTEL
Sean Ian Fischer, MA, EMBA
Leadership Consultant | International Relations and Crisis Analyst | Veterans Advocate | Personal Sovereignty Advocate | Investor at Mustang Leadership Solutions Group? LLC
? 11 September 2024 by Sean Ian Fischer. All Rights Reserved. Contributor to Mustang Leadership Solutions Group, LLC.
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The SITREP (Situation Report)
I personally walked the halls and spent dozens of hours in the Gateway Hotel while visiting my mother on three different occasions: May 2023, January 2024, and as recently as 3-6 September 2024. During each of these visits, I was situationally aware of criminal activity taking place in the Gateway Hotel. However, I was not aware of the fact that the Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang's foot soldiers were using the Hotel as a base.
On my visit two weeks ago, a Gateway Hotel employee told me a story of how a Venezuelan used knife cutting gestures directed towards him and pulled a gun on him in the lobby over this past Labor Day weekend. In fact, on Thursday 5 September 2024 between 4-5:30 PM as I was talking with the hotel staff about my Mom's hotel bill at the front desk in the lobby, 9 El Paso police officers entered the hotel single file and fanned out throughout the building announcing they were conducting a walk through of the hotel. In Spanish I said to one of the officers who appeared to be supervising the sweep that I had been told there are illegal drugs, weapons, and undocumented residents in the hotel and that I was very concerned for my mothers' well being and safety. The officer nodded but did not respond to me. Earlier that morning of the 5th of September, I learned that upwards of 20-25 police officers had swept the building.
My mother had been living amongst these illegal gangsters for years, unbeknownst to me and her. It is inconceivable that the City and County of El Paso, and the Federal Government did not know of the activities and operations of this gang for the past two or more years. I have first-hand knowledge from a source inside the hotel that was aware of law enforcement surveillance of the Gateway Hotel for at least 9 months if not for 2 years.
Texas Governor Abbot, the Federal Government, the City/County of El Paso are portraying a picture that it is the Gateway Hotel owner, South Korean born, Mr. Yun, as somehow solely responsible for the state of the hotel and its decay into being a haven for the likes of Tren de Aragua (TDA). It appears that the City/County of El Paso, and the Federal Government have put American citizens' and residents' lives in danger in pursuit of some other mysterious objective that has not yet presented itself to the public. The city, county, state, and federal governments are the only ones privy to the details as to why all levels of government officials permitted the endangerment of the lives of the legal American citizen residents of the Gateway Hotel. Some governmental public official leader made the call that the risk to the legal residents of the hotel was "acceptable" in order to score possible political points on rounding up Tren de Aragua gang members. In turn, the Tren de Aragua gang, as well as the Gateway Hotel owner, Mr. Yun, are the scapegoats of some bogus governmental political objective.
My Mother, Cynthia Cecily Clifford is a resident of the Gateway Hotel on 104 S. Stanton St., in El Paso, Texas. The hotel, as reported, has been the site of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang activities such as illegal residency in the United States, weapons possession-use, drugs, prostitution, and a gang turf war with the Aztecas, among others. The Gateway Hotel will be closed 12 September 2024 at 10 AM as reported by ABC news network. What isn’t spoken about in the reporting is the human cost and toll of shutting down this iconic hotel.
On 12 September 2024 at 8 AM, homeless organization representatives assembled at the Gateway Hotel to facilitate the County of El Paso's Prosecutor's Office clear out of the 60 legal residents of the hotel. Not to other hotels, but to homeless shelters, because the Gateway Hotel residents were effectively made homeless and displaced by the County of El Paso. I was on speaker phone with one of these non-profit organization representatives who was trying to coax my Mother out of her room while this eviction was in progress. My Mother, naturally, was bewildered as to what was happening and why she had to leave.
My Mother was given 2 hours to gather some clothes, toiletries, ID, cash and forced out of the Gateway. My Mother was told "she would be able to return at some undetermined time to recover her personal property," breaking the chain of custody of her possessions. At 10 AM DEA officers and others executed a tactical clearing of the Gateway, particularly the 4th floor of the building to rid the Gateway of Tren de Aragua gang members, their families, and other squatters.
My Mom has been in the midst of these gangsters for over 2 years I learned. To add insult to injury, I had just visited my Mother the previous week with no information or preparation of the residents being displaced or removed from the property. I learned of the County of El Paso clearing operation 2 days after my return home from El Paso on 9 September 2024. If such an operation were executed on a middle-class or wealthy residence, lawsuits against the City and County of El Paso would be flying. But since these low income residents are not of means, voice, or representation, their voices are silenced.
The strong do what they will. The weak do what they must.
Tren de Aragua (TDA)
Wikipedia explains that "Tren de Aragua" (English: Aragua Train) is a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela. It is believed to have over 5,000 members. Tren de Aragua is led by Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias "Ni?o Guerrero"; he was incarcerated in Tocoron prison, which functioned as the organization's de facto headquarters. The gang has since expanded throughout Latin America and the United States due to the Venezuelan refugee crisis, with the growth of the gang following the migration of Venezuelans to host nations. Due to the severity of its crimes, combating the gang has become a priority to many nations where Tren de Aragua has entered. Though Tocorón prison was intervened in 2023, leadership escaped and the gangs activities continue to this day...Tren de Aragua is also the first Venezuelan criminal organization to expand internationally; it has a presence in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico, and the United States. It holds a particularly dominant role in human-trafficking and human smuggling in Latin America. The organization engages in a variety of criminal activities, such as arms trafficking, bribery, drug-trafficking, illegal mining, kidnappings-for-ransom, and money laundering. The gang has alliances with Primeiro Comando da Capital in Brazil."
Gateway Hotel
According to trostsociety.org, “The Trust Building was erected in 1903 on the southeast corner of Stanton & San Antonio in El Paso. Designed by St. Louis architect Isaac S. “Fallstaff” Taylor, it was considered the city’s epicenter of business, and was purposely built in the center of downtown to be accessible to all. The building was remodeled by El Paso banker Charles Bassett into the 5-story Gateway Hotel in 1927-1928, and the renovation was designed by Trost & Trost.”
Allegedly, the famed Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa was a guest of the hotel as he tried to raise funds, recruits, and weapons during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Just diagonal and about a block away on San Antonio St., stood the Acme Saloon. A plaque on the wall of the site reads "John Wesley Hardin, the West's most feared gunman, killer of at least 26 men, was shot dead in the Acme Saloon on this site Aug. 19, 1895. Hardin was shot in the back of the head by El Paso Constable John Selman. At Selman's trial a witness testified: 'If Hardin was shot in the eye it was excellent marksmanship. If he was shot in the back it was excellent judgment.' Selman, out on bail, a few months later was killed in a gunfight." El Paso was, and in some ways, continues to be, a rough border town of the Old and New West.
My Mom
Our Mother Cynthia is now 87 years old. She has always been fiercely independent, self-sufficient, and autonomous. She is sharp, lucid, analytical, discerning, and street smart. She is a native New Yorker coming from a long line of four generations of tough, hard-bitten Irish-American New Yorkers, all born, most wed, and died on the island of Manhattan. My sister Claudia and I are also native New Yorkers having been born in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s.
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After her separation and ultimate divorce, she moved our family to El Paso, Texas in the late 1960s. We came to El Paso by bus – a little less than two thousand miles from New York City, and, in those days, the journey took about 2 or 3 days. Mom packed up all our worldly possessions into cardboard boxes tied in twine. All our residences in El Paso were in the historic Sunset Heights neighborhood of the city. Claudia attended El Paso High School. I went to Vilas Elementary School.
Cynthia had a 9th grade education. She trained as a secretary in New York City as a young woman and was skilled in shorthand. She was self-taught and well-read in a multitude of topics. She was determined to complete her high school education. While working, and raising my sister and I, she completed her GED/high school diploma in the mid-1970s.
She was a “Ms.” Woman’s Liberation Movement activist in the 1970s advocating for equal rights and pay (among other rights) for women. She was a voracious reader, an amateur artist, and an award-winning poet in her later life, active in her pursuit of the arts until her late 70s/early 80s. I remember a pencil drawing she did of Vincent Van Gogh’s self-portrait that Cynthia would hang up on a select wall in our various Sunset Heights apartments. Cynthia moved in literary and intellectual circles in El Paso.
She was mentioned in a published book, “Exit the Rainmaker,” by Jonathan Coleman. On the back sleeve cover of the book Gay Talese wrote “Jonathan Coleman has written an extraordinarily compelling and revealing true story about what many people only fantasize: to leave their lives behind and to begin again, anonymous and divorced from their past.” On page 240 of Coleman’s book, he writes:
“JAY’S ANGER TOWARD him aside, though, Bob Harned (as much as anyone Jay met in El Paso), represented the underground that Jay discovered he felt most comfortable in, the underground of living minimally, of doing jobs solely for the purpose of having enough money to get by and feel unconstrained, not out of any grand design on power or push for prestige.
It was the world of Cynthia Clifford, the first woman Jay got involved with. She was in her early forties but looked younger, an Irish femme fatale, a poet from New York…a woman whose exterior belied the hurt she had felt since her father abandoned her and her mother when she was fourteen…”
As kids, our Mom, would take us across the border to Juarez on the tram. We would shop and buy sugar, Mexican bakery goods, and other food there. I spent so much time as a young kid in El Paso, that I picked up Spanish, speaking and using it every day to the present.
Times were tough, unemployment was high, especially for a single white woman with no local connections in El Paso in the 1960s-1980s. For a long time, our Mom had a boyfriend, Ruben Blanco, who had been a bull-fighter in Mexico, and fought many bull-fights in Juarez. He was known as “El Veneno,” The Venom. She had many suitors, professionals, high-earning men, but overall, she always opted to remain independent and autonomous. She did not want to rely on family, the State, or men for her security and stability and she has remained true to her principles and belief system to the present. Our Mom instilled in us this same sense of fierce independence and autonomy that we carry with us to this day.
Claudia and I are both university graduates. Claudia is a free lance photographer and artist. I served in the US Navy for thirty-four years. My three children, Cynthia’s grandchildren, each served in the US military: my daughter in the US Air Force, and my two sons in the US Navy. Cynthia also has three great-grandchildren.
City-County of El Paso Negligence and Complicity in Manufacturing Chaos Impacting Legal Residents of the Gateway Hotel
At issue (among many) is the closure of the Gateway Hotel and the impact to our Mom, Cynthia Cecily Clifford, and the other residents. The Gateway offered affordable housing. Since our mother is fiercely independent, she routinely refuses assistance from her family or the state. Legal citizens of the United States should be able to live in safety and security and at an affordable price. Cynthia no longer drives. She likes to walk. She is highly mobile, able to walk briskly and climb stairs even able to haul a trolly of convenience store groceries up two flights of stairs. She does her shopping at expensive convenience stores that do not carry fresh food. The area around the Gateway Hotel and much of downtown El Paso is a “food desert.” If nutritious food was available within walking distance in and around downtown El Paso, our mother would be properly nourished.
The lack of walkable, and convenient food markets in downtown El Paso contributes to the mal-nourishment of its low-income residents. There are no doctors or clinics that serve downtown El Paso’s residents unless you are wealthy, of means, or are provided health care through employment. Safe, reliable, and free transportation is also not available to the elderly in downtown El Paso.
Basic living is made unnecessarily complicated because the basic needs of life are not available to downtown residents of El Paso. Instead of the City of El Paso’s Prosecutors’ Office prosecuting criminal activity that should have been solved by simple and routine police patrols and following city fire and safety ordinances, the city needlessly created drama at great expense and cost to the city’s taxpayers. The cost sunk into the many years’ long case of closing the Gateway Hotel would have been better spent subsidizing housing, transportation, health, and food resources in downtown El Paso.
The City of El Paso and the Federal government lack wisdom in their operations and are forgetting that their primary purpose (and authority given to them by American/Texas citizens) is to promote the safety, security, and general welfare of its citizens. I’m sure it is written somewhere in some founding American document.
The City of El Paso and the Federal government, in its activities, is as criminal as the Tren de Aragua and Chico Tango gangs. If El Paso and the Federal immigration authorities would adhere to what their duty to its citizens are, the situation that El Paso finds itself in (i.e. the Gateway Hotel), would not have occurred in the first place.