The first flight carrying Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States landed in Venezuela early Monday, after the two governments reached an agreement to resume repatriation flights. <\/p>\n
Nearly 200 deportees were on the plane, which landed at an airport just north of capital Caracas. <\/p>\n
Video of the arrival shows some deportees celebrating with their hands in the air as they walked down stairs on to the tarmac, where a heavy presence of security staff was stationed. Others made the sign of the cross as they disembarked. <\/p>\n
The US Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said the flight departed from the US and stopped in Honduras, where a change of planes took place. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, deportation flights of Venezuelan illegal aliens to their homeland resumed via Honduras,\u201d the department wrote on X. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese individuals had no legal basis to remain in the United States. We expect to see a consistent flow of deportation flights to Venezuela going forward. Thank you to Honduran President Castro and her government for partnering to combat illegal immigration.\u201d <\/p>\n
Honduras\u2019s Secretary of Foreign Affairs said 199 citizens of Venezuelan origin were on the flight. The transfer took three and a half hours and occurred \u201cin an orderly and safe manner,\u201d Enrique Reina said in a post on X. <\/p>\n
Following the transfer the \u201cVenezuelan-flagged vessel departed for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,\u201d said Reina. <\/p>\n
Repatriations to Venezuela had stalled over the Trump administration\u2019s decision in February to revoke a license allowing American oil company Chevron to carry out some operations in the South American country. <\/p>\n
Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro said at the time that the decision \u201caffected\u201d the flights to Venezuela, prompting the Trump administration to threaten further sanctions on the South American country. <\/p>\n
The resumption of repatriation flights follows growing outrage in Venezuela over the US deporting 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, who were then transferred to the notorious Cecot mega-prison. <\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly President Jorge Rodr\u00edguez G\u00f3mez announced the agreement to resume repatriations in a statement on Saturday, two weeks after Venezuela had effectively paused repatriation flights from the US. <\/p>\n
\u201cMigration is not a crime, and we will not rest until we achieve the return of all those who need it and until we rescue our brothers and sisters kidnapped in El Salvador,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said Saturday. <\/p>\n
Venezuela does not have diplomatic relations in the US. Flight tracking data suggests the deportees were transferred Sunday from a Texas charter flight \u2013 which landed at an airbase in Honduras that was previously used for migrant transfers \u2013 to a Caracas-bound plane. <\/p>\n
The White House hasn\u2019t commented on Sunday\u2019s deportation flight. <\/p>\n
Maduro on Wednesday ordered his government to increase the number of flights needed to repatriate Venezuelan migrants detained in the US. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first flight carrying Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States landed in Venezuela early…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}