An illegal immigrant mother and her son ran a sex trafficking operation out of Tennessee, recruiting poor young Venezuelan women, paying to smuggle them into the U.S., and then forcing them into prostitution once here, federal prosecutors said.

The mother, the son and six other Venezuelan migrants were involved, sometimes personally bringing the women into the U.S., advertising their sex services and collecting their earnings, the Justice Department said.

Yilbeth del Carmen Rivero-De Caldera, the 51-year-old mother, and Kleiver Daniel Mota-Rivero, 35, her son, also have ties to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, prosecutors said, claiming they used that to threaten the women with harm to them or their families if they tried to flee.

The case points back to the relaxed border policies of the Biden administration, which the migrants — both the traffickers and the women forced into prostitution — used to gain a foothold here.

All eight are currently deemed illegal immigrants eligible for deportation by the government.

Some were here without any legal status but others were taking advantage of the Biden administration’s grant of Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans, a deportation amnesty that offers illegal immigrants ways to burrow into their communities.

“The success of this operation to stop Tren de Aragua operating in our communities is a significant step forward in our ongoing battle against human trafficking and transnational organized crime,” said Rana Saoud, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Nashville.

Prosecutors said Ms. Rivero and Mr. Mota honed in on women who were poor and had limited prospects in their home countries, chiefly Venezuela. They were often single mothers.

The traffickers would pay for them to be smuggled north, and in some cases actually accompanied them into the U.S.

Court documents don’t reveal what status the victimized women had, but do say that the women were flown into Tennessee, where they were put up at hotels and forced into prostitution.

In one 2022 instance highlighted in the indictment, the ring told a woman it would cost $6,000 to smuggle her into the U.S. She got across the border and was bused to Houston, where they all caught a flight to Nashville. While on the plane the woman was told she owed $15,000 and would have to engage in prostitution to pay it off.

In a 2023 case, Mr. Mota recruited a woman to make the trip, sent her some money, then while she was in Mexico she was told she owed $30,000, which is far more than she was sent.

She was told she needed to work the payments off through prostitution. Once in the U.S. she was caught and released by Homeland Security, and the trafficking ring paid to fly her to Nashville where she was put at a hotel and forced to sell sex.

All told, the indictment recounts six women targeted by the ring.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.