Families in Swing State Afraid to Let Kids Play Outside After Venezuelan Migrant Attacks Mom, Child: Lawmaker

A member of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang was arrested in a tiny Wisconsin community for allegedly sexually assaulting a mother and abusing her daughter after he had been arrested and released earlier this year in Minneapolis.

Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, whose grandchildren live less than a mile away from the Prairie du Chien home where the mother and daughter were held against their will and repeatedly victimized, told Fox News Digital that it was only a matter of time before tragedy would strike the community amid the White House’s open-border policies and sanctuary city initiatives.

Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, 26, assaulted the woman and child “under particularly brutal circumstances,” and attacked his victims “over the course of a period of time,” Prairie du Chien Police Chief Kyle Teynor said at a September 9 press conference following Coronel Zarate’s arrest.

Coronel Zarate was charged with sexual assault, battery, strangulation, suffocation, false imprisonment, child abuse and disorderly conduct in Crawford County Court on Wednesday, WXOW reported. He remains in Crawford County Jail on $10,000 cash bond.

The mother later told police that Coronel Zarate had also assaulted her on September 4, according to a criminal complaint. During that incident, she told police, Coronel Zarate allegedly told her, “I get away with it. I’m a criminal.”

Teynor said that Coronel Zarate had tattoos associating him with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, which originated in the country’s prisons and has since grown a foothold in several areas across the United States.

Members are accused of a series of high-profile crimes across the U.S., including the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the shooting of two NYPD officers during an arrest in June.

“I don’t care what your political affiliation is. This is not a Democrat issue. It’s not an independent or Libertarian issue. This is a human-rights issue,” Van Orden said at the Sept. 9 press conference. “American citizens’ human rights are being violated. They’re being kidnapped, raped and murdered by criminal illegal aliens, and it’s just got to stop.”

Van Orden told Fox News Digital that he stands behind his earlier comments despite the pushback he has since received.

“They’re calling us racists for putting out the fact that a man with organized crime tattoos was let into the country by the Harris border czar – he happens to be Venezuelan,” Van Orden said.

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Prairie du Chien police confirmed that Zarate had entered the country in September 2023 at or near the El Paso, Texas point of entry.

“I’ve been to the border three times. They let a guy in the country with gang tattoos, and you get a medical screening before you come over the border. {snip}” Van Orden said incredulously.

The former Navy SEAL said the attack had shaken his small community, but said it was only a matter of time until migrant crime would strike there.

“Why should a town of 5,500 people . . . be afraid of letting their kids play in their front yard?” Van Orden said. “It wasn’t like this three years ago.”

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