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Revealed: US law enforcement claimed emojis could signal Tren de Aragua affiliation
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/fbi-cbp-tren-de-aragua-emojisRevealed: US law enforcement claimed emojis could signal Tren de Aragua affiliation
Claims are ‘an unsophisticated, uneducated approach that demonstrates a lack of knowledge’, says one professor
Sam Levin in Los Angeles and Maanvi Singh in Oakland
Fri 19 Sep 2025 07.30 EDT
US law enforcement officials have claimed that the use of certain emojis could signal affiliation with Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Venezuelan gang, according to internal records reviewed by the Guardian.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the US army and other agencies have alleged in briefings, threat warnings and training materials for law enforcement that specific symbols used on social media are associated with Tren de Aragua, a group Donald Trump has regularly cited to support his immigration crackdown.
The emoji claims, repeated by the New York police department (NYPD), were made in four reports disseminated among law enforcement in 2024 and 2025 and obtained through records requests by Property of the People, a government transparency non-profit.
Emojis that officials claimed were “commonly” used by Tren de Aragua and part of members’ “code language” include trains, swords, ninjas, aliens and strawberries.
Gang experts and immigration attorneys who reviewed the records said the claims were “ludicrous”, “uneducated” and “baseless” and raised concerns that authorities could cite emojis to erroneously label people as Tren de Aragua members – allegations that can have dire consequences, including deportation.
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