More than 100 Venezuelans deported in first direct repatriation flight to Venezuela
A repatriation flight from Texas that landed in Caracas’ main airport on Wednesday kicked off direct U.S. deportations to Venezuela, less than two weeks after the Biden administration announced their resumption.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight left Harlingen, Texas, on Wednesday morning, according to FlightAware, before making a crew stop in Miami. It landed in the Simon Bolivar International Airport near Caracas in the afternoon. IAero Airways, a major ICE contractor previously known as Swift Air, was the operator, according to the flight tracker. There were 135 single adults on the flight.
The deportation flights come as the Biden administration struggles to reduce the number of Venezuelans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Between last October and August of this year, Customs and Border Protection registered 199,511 encounters with Venezuelan nationals, nearly 12,000 more than in all of fiscal year 2022. CBS News recently reported that a record high of some 50,000 Venezuelans had crossed the border in September alone.
The first deportation flight also took place on the one-year anniversary of the Biden administration rolling out a new parole process that allows Venezuelan nationals to temporarily come live and work in the United States, another way the federal government has tried to curb irregular migration in the region.
Tom Cartwright, an independent volunteer analyst, told the Miami Herald that it was the first direct Venezuelan repatriation he has tracked since he started monitoring ICE flights in January 2020.
The Department of Transportation barred aviation companies in May 2019 from flying cargo and passengers to and from Venezuela, following a request from a Trump-era Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who said dangerous conditions in Venezuela were risky to passengers and air crews. On Oct. 10, Homeland Security asked the federal transportation agency to allow charter flights to take Venezuelans with final deportation orders to Caracas, according to federal government records, saying that the flights would happen as soon as they were allowed.
“This exemption is urgently needed to undertake one of the core statutory missions of the Department: Securing the United States’ borders and safeguarding the integrity of its immigration system. It would respond to an increase in migration from Venezuela that is straining immigration systems throughout the hemisphere — including our own,” reads the letter from Blas Nuñez-Nieto, the DHS Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy.
Nuñez-Nieto said the agency would operate flights that would fly to Caracas and back to the U.S. on the same day and have security teams aboard to reduce risks. He added that the flights could be expected to happen several times a week. The Department of Transportation granted an indefinite exemption within days of receiving the letter.
READ MORE: U.S. strikes deal with Maduro government, will start deportation flights to Venezuela
On Oct. 5, Homeland Security announced the flights would resume for Venezuelan border crossers who “do not establish a legal basis to remain,” following an agreement with Venezuela’s government and conversations with Mexico, Colombia and Panama.
“Today’s announcement makes clear that we are committed to strictly enforcing immigration laws and quickly removing individuals who do not avail themselves of these orderly processes and choose to cross our border unlawfully,” DHS said at the time in a statement.
Immigration activists denounced the development, saying that it endangers deportees, who would be at the mercy of the Venezuelan government and conditions in the country. They also said that it contradicts another recent DHS decision that gave Temporary Protected Status to an additional half a million Venezuelans because conditions in the country were unsafe.
More than 7 million people have fled Venezuela in recent years, according to the United Nations, as its residents live with food shortages, insufficient healthcare and a crumbling infrastructure.
Human-rights groups have also documented extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and repression of opposition and journalists. The U.S. government said last year that “the Maduro regime took no effective action to meaningfully identify, investigate, prosecute, or punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses or engaged in corruption.”
READ MORE: U.S. to ease Venezuela sanctions if Maduro commits to fair elections this week
The deportations come as the United States considers easing economic sanctions on Venezuela if the country’s government strikes a deal with the political opposition to host free and fair elections. A Department of State spokesperson previously said that the deportations were “part of a regional effort to address the historic irregular migration challenge – and limited to that issue only.”
The repatriations are also part of wider efforts from the Biden administration to reduce irregular migration to the United States. The federal government has rolled out several programs to curb irregular migration, including a parole process that allows eligible Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans to come to the United States for two years.
On Wednesday, the U.S. announced a family reunification program for Ecuador, as more Ecuadorians flee cartel-related violence and illegally cross the Darien Gap, a dangerous jungle on the border of Panama and Colombia, to come to the United States.
