UGLY COYOTE:

Even before she was publicly identified -- The New York Times first published Huerta's name Sunday -- attention had focused on her alleged role in the scheme, and the mystery of her identity.

Migrants said she had introduced herself only as "Perla" and held herself out as a kind of guardian angel. Outside an immigration resource center in San Antonio, they said, she approached Venezuelans and promised a better life up north.

She seemed to be targeting Venezuelans, in particular. Carlos, a migrant who did not want his last name published, said Monday that when Huerta approached him in a white van outside a Walgreens, her first question was, "Are you Venezuelan?"

When he said yes, she drove him to a hotel and put him and other migrants up for the night.

"I thought it was some kind of special program for Venezuelan immigration," he said. "But it was all a trick."

Millions of Venezuelans have left their home country in recent years amidst political upheaval and economic instability, and many have headed for the United States and applied for asylum. According to federal government figures, more than 25,000 Venezuelans were stopped at the US southern border in August of this year, four times more than in August 2021.

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