The Trump administration will extradite three Venezuelan gang members to Chile where they are wanted for major crimes, officials said Monday, finding a new outlet for deportations of Tren de Aragua migrants.
The Justice Department said the three have been declared “alien enemies” to speed the extradition process along.
Indeed, the three would already have been removed, but for a federal judge who has put limits on TdA ousters, saying the administration is playing too fast with the Alien Enemies Act, the 1798 law President Trump has cited for authority to kick them out.
“The Justice Department is taking every step within the bounds of the law to ensure these individuals are promptly sent to Chile to face justice for their abhorrent crimes,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The three men are Adrian Rafael Gamez Finol, 38, who is wanted in Chile on kidnapping and firearms charges, including a kidnapping resulting in homicide; Miguel Oyola Jimenez, 37, wanted for two counts of kidnapping for ransom; and Edgar Javier Benitez Rubio, 37, wanted for kidnapping with homicide and kidnapping for ransom.
The Justice Department said all three are in the U.S. illegally.
One, Mr. Gamez Finol, has been charged with illegal re-entry into the U.S. and is already serving time in a Texas county prison for a human smuggling case.
Mr. Trump has declared TdA to be a foreign terrorist organization and flexed the Alien Enemies Act to cut through some of the usual hurdles to deportation.
A week ago, the U.S. made three deportation flights carrying more than 200 TdA suspects to El Salvador, where the U.S. is paying for their detention in a notorious terrorist prison.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has blocked future flights and tried to block the three that already took off. He is now investigating whether the administration intentionally violated his orders.
On Monday he issued a new ruling that ordered those declared alien enemies under the 1798 law are entitled to some sort of individual judicial review before they can be ousted. The government must be able to prove at that hearing that the people are, in fact, members of the gang.
He said there’s little danger to the U.S. because the people being targeted are already able to be detained and don’t have to be on the streets while they await the outcome of their hearings.
“The noncitizens comprising the class are already in United States custody, and any actual Tren de Aragua member is already subject to deportation as a member of an FTO, so there is little additional harm to the public by temporarily preventing their removal,” Judge Boasberg wrote.
He said that’s all the more important because Salvadoran prisons are notorious for violence, torture at the hands of police, and deaths.
Judge Boasberg has also expressed a broader worry over Mr. Trump’s use of the 1798 law to go after TdA, calling it “unprecedented” for it to be used in cases where there is no declared war.
Mr. Trump has declared TdA connected to the Venezuelan government and engaged in an “invasion” or “incursion” into the U.S., which triggers the Alien Enemies Act.
