Two Venezuelan aircraft with 190 irregular migrants on board, which were deported from the United States, landed in Venezuela on Monday night.
Two aircraft with 190 Venezuelan irregular migrants deported from the United States landed in Venezuela on Monday nine o'clock at night local time.
The first images of the migrants getting out of the first plane that landed were disclosed live in the television program of the Monday of the ruler Nicolás Maduro, broadcast on the state channel.
From the Simón Bolívar International Airport that serves Caracas, the Minister of Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, said that Venezuelans will be subjected to medical check -ups and that they will review cases in which there is a criminal record.
Each aircraft transported 95 migrants, according to statements given on the official television that also showed images of men, most in sweatshirt and without luggage.
Maduro clarified that the government of President Donald Trump issued the necessary licenses for planes of the sanctioned state airline, convasa, could land on US soil.
In addition, he reiterated his proposal to start from a “zero agenda” with the United States, and said they hope to hold the steps they have taken.
“Venezuela assumes the need from the Bolivarian Paz diplomacy to build an agenda of a new beginning in historical relations of respect, communication and understanding with the United States of America,” said the ruler.
The ruler, who insisted that migration is a consequence of international sanctions that negatively impacted the Venezuelan economy, said that more than half of the Venezuelans who left and was confident that “the rest will return.”
“I told Ambassador Richard Grenelll, raise all the sanctions and we in Venezuela we absolutely guarantee, as always, that not a migrant will leave our country again and that all those who remain outside will return to work, to build,” he said .
The first two flights with irregular Venezuelan migrants left this Monday from the United States to the South American country in airline airline convies, as confirmed by the governments of both countries.
Air records available to the public show that both planes left Caracas early to Cancun, and from there they traveled to the Fort Bliss military base, located in the border city of El Paso, Texas.
These aircraft spent a few hours in the passage and began their return to Cancun, with the Simón Bolivar International Airport in Caracas as a final destination, according to the records.
“(The airplanes) were sent to the US in the framework of the return plan to the homeland to move back to our territory to Venezuelan migrant compatriots who were in the US,” reads the statement signed by the Venezuelan government.
The White House also confirmed the start of repatriation flights and added that President Donald Trump's special envoy, Richard Grenelll, was supervising the process according to a publication in social networks.
Grenell traveled to Caracas at the beginning of February to meet with ruler Nicolás Maduro. There, as announced, Venezuela agreed to receive all Venezuelan irregular immigrants captured in the United States.
Last Friday the Tsar of La Frontera, Tom Homan, confirmed that deportation flights from the United States to Venezuela would come out “within the next 30 days“
Trump, on the other hand, had advanced that Venezuela had offered to provide transport from the US to that country with deported people.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan government said that some of the people inside these aircraft could be linked to “criminal activities, or would be involved with criminal actions” of the Criminal Band of Aragua.
“As appropriate, people indicated will be subject to rigorous investigation as soon as they touch Venezuelan land and will be subject to the actions provided in our justice system,” added the Venezuelan government statement.
In October 2023, Caracas and Washington agreed to initiate a process of repatriation of Venezuelans who had arrived in US territory after July 31 and had no legal basis to remain in that country.
However, in January 2024, the Venezuelan government stopped receiving flights from the United States and Mexico with deported Venezuelans after the decision of the administration of Joe Biden to reimpose sanctions to the Venezuelan state gold company.