内容摘要：A farmer holds onto the reins as he slides through mud behind his speeding oxen during a traditional oxen plow race known as Nangarni Spardha at Dervan village in Ratnagiri district, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

A farmer holds onto the reins as he slides through mud behind his speeding oxen during a traditional oxen plow race known as Nangarni Spardha at Dervan village in Ratnagiri district, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

Earlier this month, the U.S. government announced it will extradite three Tren de Aragua members to Chile for their involvement in the case.The Tren de Aragua has been on the radar of U.S. authorities for years. The administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden sanctioned the gang in July 2024, and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three of its leaders, including Guerrero.

But it wasn’t until Trump campaigned for a second White House term that the Tren de Aragua became widely known in the U.S., as he and his allies turned the gang into the face of the alleged threat posed by immigrants living in the country illegally.Trump has taken the extraordinary steps to designate the group a “foreign terrorist organization,” and earlier this month, an invading force, by invoking an 18th-century wartime law that allows the U.S. to deport noncitizens without any legal recourse, including rights to appear before an immigration or federal court judge.Under those decisions, the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan immigrants to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. It has alleged that the transferred individuals were Tren de Aragua members, though it has not provided any evidence to back up that claim.

The parents of some of those immigrants categorically rejected the gang-affiliation allegation and said their children do not have criminal records in the U.S. or Venezuela.A September 2024 slide presentation from the Texas Department of Public Safety showed Tren de Aragua activity in six states and claimed members had identifiable tattoos, including “stars on shoulder to indicate rank” and “trains and dice.”

Some recently deported Venezuelans have said U.S. authorities wrongly judged their tattoos to accuse them of gang activity. Rísquez did not doubt that members of the gang are currently in the U.S., but she said tattoos, which are commonly used by Central American gangs, are not required for those affiliated with the Tren de Aragua.

“The problem is which Tren de Aragua members are in the U.S., where they are, how many there are,” Rísquez said. “That is not clear, and with all the latest events, this is becoming less and less clear.”from running in the August presidential vote and suspended the candidacy of the other main leftist contender, immediately vaulting

into the ranks of front-runners despite its unpopularity.The moves targeted the two strongest leftist challengers to Arce’s nominee: Morales, Bolivia’s

who governed the country from 2006 until his ouster in 2019, and Andrónico Rodríguez, the young Senate president who hails from Morales’ rural coca-growing bastion.Both Morales and Rodríguez vowed to fight the decisions and condemned them as a blow to the Andean nation’s fragile democracy.