The US government has agreed to deport three members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to Chile, the Justice Department announced on Monday.
The Tren de Aragua, a gang known as TDA, has been a focus of the Trump administration, with President Trump invoking a wartime act on March 15 to deport over 200 gang members for the first time.
The Department of Justice claims that Adrian Rafael Gamez Finol, Miguel Oyola Jimenez, and Edgar Javier Benitez Rubio, who have all been identified as TDA members, entered the US illegally after committing crimes in Chile and poses a serious threat to national security.
Chile has requested that the US extradite these men to face justice in Chile, where they are accused of committing serious crimes, including murder, firearms offenses, and kidnapping.
Oyola Jimenez is being held in federal custody in the Western District of Washington, Benitez Rubio is in immigrant custody in Indiana, and Gamez Finol is serving a sentence in a Texas county jail for human smuggling.
The deportation proceedings will be handled by US District Judge James Boasberg, who has been a key figure in the case, and the Trump administration plans to deport around 260 gang members on March 15.
On Monday, Boasberg refused to lift a restraining order that prevents the US government from deporting Venezuelans under the wartime law.
