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I find the AEA argument to be quite weak in this case. For the TDA members and their supporters. The AEA was passed when John Adams was President and Thomas Jefferson, his main political rival, was Vice-President. If we transported both to 2025 and had someone neutrally describe TDA, with no conclusion language or question begging (i.e. don't use "invading army", "criminal gang" etc to describe them), describing their place of origin, appearance, and actions both would agree on the outcome. It would go something along the lines of, "Sure I guess we can expel them with the AEA, but why not just hang them like we do with the rest of the Indian warbands that do those things?"
So the dilemma is not real a dilemma about the AEA, its a dilemma about whether expulsion or public execution within 48 hours is the more appropriate punishment. Due process is not something appropriate for foreign savages, both would tell you. In criminal courts it is for co-citizens like the British soldiers Adams defended in court, or for uniformed British soldiers eventual President Andrew Jackson would take prisoner during the war of 1812, who would be held pending the outcome of the war, or immediately expelled under the AEA, depending on what was militarily appropriate. Jefferson, in his later years might note that very few Barbary pirates were ever afforded the opportunity to surrender in that war, mostly ships were left to sink or set ablaze with losses frequently being total.
But Tren de Aragua are a criminal gang. That's their purpose for existing. The BBC, no fan of Trump or his deportation agenda, say it started as a corrupt local railway union which extorted carriers and contractors on their section of line, then turned into a prison gang, and now is a "transnational criminal organization" which controls diverse economic activities including gold mining and sex trafficking, and engages in political assassination as well as more commonplace "murder and torture."
The question is whether their activities in the US are in coordination with the Venezuelan dictatorship, as asserted by the administration.
That is the word we use to describe them now. But the question at hand is what are the words John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would have used to describe them in the early 1800s. To those people in that time "gang" would have strong implications that a matter is local of origin and scope. Thus, I think in our hypothetical using the word "gang" to describe TDA can only serve to mislead.
This just sounds like a rogue government. Or some rogue offshoot of a chartered international corporation like the Dutch East India corporation. Adams and Jefferson would PRESUME any org engaging in all that sort of commerce must be sponsored by some government, otherwise the other governments would crush them. Or they would ask you something like, "this Venezuela is a lawless land of pirates then?" We hang pirates, or sink them, of course. "
Adams defended John Hancock in court after the latter's smuggling business was caught out. The big deal in smuggling back then was just getting wine and tea without paying taxes on them, but that was enough that it helped fund and train colonists for and prompt the American Revolution.
Jefferson fought the first of the Barbary Wars, against foes who were nominally Ottoman protectorates but really independent warlords funded by human trafficking, extortion, and piracy.
Explain to them that we now have drugs so destructive that we ban their shipment at any price and yet so addictive that their market is over $10B/year, and I think they'd understand right away that those drugs' smugglers would avoid becoming a legible (and thus easily targetable) government but would still become powerful enough to stand up to weak governments anyway.
This was Jefferson's thinking going into the First Barbary War, despite that being evenly matched enough that we have to call it the "First" and we didn't get a complete victory until a decade later. Pitting the modern US vs Venzuela would seem to be a much more obvious and less bold decision.
I'm not sure that works as a metaphor here, though. That "avoid becoming a legible government" trick in the modern case is a sneaky one. If we can't stop Tren de Aragua from operating here in the US under our noses, why be surprised or angry with Venezuela about the fact that they also can't stop it there? But if we can, then from our point of view the problem is solved here, no need to go nation-building to try to solve it elsewhere.
So an arm of the revolutionary government and its precursors. State.
Yes. And we took basically zero POWs. We just sank pirates until their state sponsor agreed to some terms.
Yes its a problem of will here, not means. While its more of a question of means/will (aka intentional by Venezuela). I think there is a lot of intentional burying the head in the sand on this question. 3rd party groups is how modern war by inferior powers is conducted. People acting like Venezuela should be treated like a real nation state that is going to conduct proper military operations are delusional.
Proto-state, sure, with the benefit of hindsight. The actual State at the time was the government they fought against for 8 years, who wasn't their sponsor.
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