A plane from Honduras carrying 199 deportees from the United States arrived early Monday morning in Venezuela, marking the resumption of deportation flights that were suspended a month ago amid the migration crisis triggered by Donald Trump. Venezuela announced on Saturday the resumption of flights with deportees from the United States, which had been suspended for a month while both governments accused each other of sabotaging a deportation agreement reached in January.
“Today we are receiving 199 compatriots,” said Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello at Maiquetía International Airport, which serves Caracas. The aircraft from the state airline Conviasa arrived at 01:01 local time (05:01 GMT). One of the deportees shouted loudly “Thank you! God bless Venezuela,” while disembarking from the plane. Earlier, state television showed footage from inside the plane at Honduras airport with the migrants, all men, in handcuffs.
Cabello recalled that this is the fourth flight with Venezuelans deported from the United States. The first two departed from El Paso, Texas, on February 10, followed by another with 177 migrants who had been detained at Guantánamo prison in Cuba and subsequently repatriated via Honduras.
“The flights are resuming,” Cabello said. “The trips have had little regularity, not because of Venezuela; we are ready to receive Venezuelans wherever they are, when the possibilities exist,” he assured. The arrival of this group, which left Texas for Honduras, occurs a week after the deportation of 238 Venezuelans to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, an event that President Nicolás Maduro described as kidnapping.
The pace of deportations, agreed upon after Richard Grenell, Trump’s special envoy, visited Caracas on January 31, has been questioned by the US president. As retaliation, he revoked the license that allowed the American oil company Chevron to operate in Venezuela. Caracas, for its part, denounced that the US State Department was “blocking” repatriation flights.
Venezuela and the United States broke diplomatic relations in 2019, during Trump’s first administration, which imposed an oil embargo after considering Maduro’s first reelection in May 2018 fraudulent. Washington also did not recognize Maduro’s proclamation for a third term after the elections held on July 28, 2024. The opposition denounced fraud and claimed victory for former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia, who has been in exile since last September.
Kidnapped in El Salvador
The United States claims that the Venezuelans taken to El Salvador on March 16 belong to the feared Tren de Aragua gang, which emerged in Venezuela and was declared a terrorist organization by Trump. Caracas denounces a criminalization campaign against migrants.
Since 2014, almost 8 million Venezuelans have left the country, suffocated by an 80% reduction in the economy—which began to reverse in 2021—and a massive inflation that the Venezuelan government attributes to US sanctions. For the deportations of migrants to El Salvador, Washington had invoked a law from 1798 that allows for expulsion without trial of “foreign enemies,” which Caracas labels as “anachronistic.”
Trump denied having signed said proclamation hours after Judge James Boasberg, who suspended the expulsion of migrants, described the repercussions of using a war law from 1798 as “incredibly problematic.” “We would like the next call (from the United States) to be that they are going to release those who are kidnapped in El Salvador; we await a response from the government of El Salvador,” Cabello said in reference to upcoming deportations.
The Trump administration announced on March 21 that it will revoke the legal status in the United States of about 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who arrived in the United States under a plan launched by his predecessor, Joe Biden. Once the order from the Department of Homeland Security is published in the Federal Register, they will lose their legal protection in 30 days.
Cabello estimated that about 155,000 Venezuelans will be affected by this decision. With Monday’s group, about 1,119 Venezuelans have been repatriated since February, at least 566 deported by the Trump administration and the rest brought by the Venezuelan government from Mexico, where they were stranded on their way to the United States.
