Plane carrying 199 deportees lands as Caracas agrees to work around US crackdown on foreign nationals.
A plane carrying 199 people deported from the United States has landed in Venezuela, as President Donald Trump continues his crackdown on foreign nationals.
Arriving via Honduras, the plane touched down on Monday at Maiquetia international airport outside Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. It was the latest in a string of repatriations accepted by Venezuela since January.
“Today we are receiving 199 compatriots,” Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said at the airport.
Live footage showed young men in sweatsuits disembarking the plane. Some were seen smiling and clapping as officials looked on.
Venezuela announced that it had reached an agreement with the US on Saturday to resume repatriation flights following a two-week standoff.
“Flights are resuming,” Cabello said at the airport. “We are ready to receive Venezuelans wherever they are.”
The deportation pipeline was suspended last month. Trump claimed Venezuela was not living up to an agreement to quickly receive deported migrants. Caracas subsequently said it would no longer accept the flights.
Washington then deported 238 Venezuelans it accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, which the Trump administration has designated a “foreign terrorist organization”, to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
The move, which used a 200-year-old law allowing US presidents to detain or deport noncitizens during wartime, shocked many and prompted discussions over constitutional rights as Washington carried out the deportation despite a court ruling ordering it to be delayed. It was also deeply criticised by Caracas.
Strained relations
The Trump administration has sent Venezuelan deportees to third countries in Central America “because the US does not have decent relations with Venezuela”, Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer, told Al Jazeera.
Over the past month, Venezuela has accepted about 350 deportees, including about 180 detained at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for 16 days.
However, Trump said last month President Nicolas Maduro had failed to accept deported migrants “at the rapid pace” agreed. He also revoked permission for oil giant Chevron to operate in Venezuela – a blow to Caracas’s wobbly economy.
The difficulties reflect longstanding tensions in relations.
The US and Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations in 2019, during Trump’s first term, after Washington recognised then-opposition leader Juan Guaido as “interim president” following elections widely rejected as neither free nor fair.
Maduro nevertheless maintained his grip on power, and Joe Biden’s administration relaxed sanctions on Venezuelan oil as part of a deal for American prisoners and a promise to hold free elections. Those promised reforms never came.
Washington did not recognise Maduro’s re-election last year to a third six-year term in a vote he was widely accused of stealing.
As of 2022, there were 275,000 unauthorised Venezuelan immigrants in the US, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center.