First deportation flight reaches Venezuela after deadly earthquakes as activists criticize move

A flight carrying 147 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States landed in Venezuela on Monday, the first such repatriation flight since earthquakes devastated the country’s central and northern regions in June.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed the deportation flight to el Nuevo Herald.

“On August 3, ICE successfully conducted a removal flight to return 147 Venezuelans to Venezuela. For operational security reasons, we would not confirm future removal operations,” DHS said in an email late Monday.

The Gran Misión Vuelta a la Patria (Great Return to the Homeland Mission), a government repatriation program, said on social media that the returnees arrived on Flight 165.

Officials with the program also contacted relatives to inform them that arrangements were underway to transport the returnees to their home states.

The flight originated in El Paso, Texas, after stopping at Opa-locka Executive Airport in Miami-Dade County. It departed at 7:17 a.m. and landed at General José Antonio Anzoátegui International Airport in Barcelona, northeastern Venezuela, at 10:21 a.m., according to the ICE Flight Monitor operated by Human Rights First.

“We are monitoring a potential ICE Air deportation flight (GXA6253) from Miami to Barcelona, Venezuela. If confirmed, it would be the first flight to Venezuela since the June earthquakes. Previous flights have departed for Caracas on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,” the organization reported.

María Elena Ramírez told el Nuevo Herald that an official with the Gran Misión Vuelta a la Patria called her Monday morning to inform her that her brother-in-law, Domingo Alexander Pinto, had arrived as part of the repatriation operation.

“He told me, ‘Mr. Domingo Pinto is already here in Venezuela. He is here [in Barcelona], in Anzoátegui state, at the airport,’” Ramírez recalled, describing her conversation with the official.

Ramírez said the official told her that deportees would begin traveling to their home states later that day.

“Today we are going to start distributing them,” Ramírez said the official told her.

Her family took the announcement as a sign that the migrants would be sent directly home rather than being held by security agencies, as happened with the deportees on Flight 164.

Families await swift reunification

“It appears they are not going to hold them,” Ramírez said. “That is what I understood when they told me they would begin turning them over today.”

A group of 146 Venezuelans arrived on Flight 164 at Maiquetía International Airport shortly before earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck north-central Venezuela just 39 seconds apart.

Authorities transferred them to the so-called Santuario La Llanada hotel, formerly known as Negra Hipólita, located on a vegetation-covered hill in La Guaira, the state hardest hit by the twin earthquakes.

There, they were held while authorities conducted criminal background checks, fingerprinting and procedures related to their identity documents.

The building collapsed during the earthquakes. According to testimonies and unofficial figures, 20 of the returnees survived, while relatives continue searching for those who remain missing.

Ramírez lives in Zulia state, in northwestern Venezuela, and believes deportees from that region will be transported on domestic flights from Barcelona before being reunited with their families.

Activists consider the measure serious

José Antonio Colina, president of Venezolanos Perseguidos Políticos en el Exilio (VEPPEX), a Miami-based organization, said the deportations should not be taking place given the conditions in Venezuela following the earthquakes, adding that the measure “does not even address the requests that activists and members of Congress have made regarding temporary protection.”

Colina said the U.S. government has ignored those requests and failed to take into account that deportees are met upon arrival by officers from Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), who, he said, persecute them.

“They really don’t care what happens to Venezuelans in order to alter their immigration policy,” he told el Nuevo Herald.

Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said the resumption of deportation flights was deeply concerning given the conditions in Venezuela following the twin earthquakes, particularly because authorities have yet to provide updated information on those who remain missing from Flight 164.

“They are still searching for their relatives; there is no official list of those who died or survived, and they have not explained SEBIN’s role.”

Communication restrictions persist

While Ramírez welcomed what appeared to be the government’s decision to allow the returnees to go directly home, she said the same communication restrictions reported during previous deportation flights remain in place.

She said that when she asked to speak with her brother-in-law, the official with the Vuelta a la Patria Mission denied her request.

“I told him that if he could call him or let me know so I could contact him because I wanted to speak with him. He replied, ‘No, ma’am, that is not possible,’ and hung up on me,” she said.

The family has also been unable to establish direct contact with Pinto.

Ramírez said her brother-in-law was detained by ICE agents on May 28 after reporting to a routine appointment with U.S. immigration authorities.

“He had his phone, he had his watch, he had all his belongings,” she said.

According to testimonies previously collected by el Nuevo Herald from relatives of passengers on Flight 164, the deportees spent hours unable to communicate with their families and were only allowed to make phone calls using devices provided by officers of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN).