Over 100 migrants deported to Venezuela as repatriation flights resume

The Biden administration flew more than 100 Venezuelans back to their authoritarian socialist homeland on Wednesday as deportation flights to the troubled nation resumed for the first time in years.

The Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this month that it would resume direct repatriations to Venezuela in an effort to deter illegal border-crossings after a decision by Venezuelan authorities to accept the return of Venezuelan nationals.

“This flight to Venezuela is the first I’ve seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country,” Corey Price, an acting executive associate director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told the Associated Press. 

“And we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks,” he added. 

The roughly 130 migrants on Wednesday’s first flight traveled aboard ICE Air, a Boeing 737 jet chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that took off from the Texas border town of Harlingen and stopped in Miami before continuing to Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas. 

All passengers on the first flight had illegally entered the US between ports of entry, according to US Border Patrol, and wore wrist and ankle restraints and were patted down as they boarded the jet.

ICE is prioritizing recent arrivals and migrants who have committed crimes during their time in the US for the initial deportation flights. 

Nearly a half-million Venezuelans have illegally crossed the southwest border since President Biden took office — with the surge peaking at more than 34,000 arrests in April and more than 31,000 stops recorded in August, the most recent month for which data are available.

Roughly 200,000 Venezuelans illegally crossed the southwest border in the most recent 11 months of Customs and Border Protection data, forming about 9% of all such transits.

Last month, Biden, 80,  extended temporary protected status to an estimated 472,000 Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the US by July 31 of this year, which grants the cohort protection from deportation and the right to live and work legally in America due to their home country’s dysfunction.

“Venezuelans who have not applied for TPS and have deportation orders could be affected,” Rachel Leon, an immigration attorney in Florida, told the AP. “Those who are eligible for TPS should apply as soon as possible to avoid facing deportation.”