DHS Rejects Rep. Joaquin Castro Claim Deportation Flight Sent Families to Venezuela After Earthquakes

The Department of Homeland Security pushed back against Rep. Joaquin Castro’s claim that immigration officials tried to deport families with children to Venezuela after last week’s earthquakes, as the country reeled from the June 24 disaster.

“Last Tuesday, Adelys Ferro decided she would refresh the Court Listener website, a free public access site to legal information, every half hour, until the courts informed the fate of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States”

BBC

Castro said families held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas were awakened overnight and transferred to Arizona for what they believed was a deportation flight to Venezuela before being returned to the detention facility.

BBC

DHS disputed the account, saying a deportation flight safely arrived in Venezuela on June 24 and that everyone aboard was returned before the earthquakes struck.

DHS said, "This is FALSE," and added that "On June 24, a deportation flight safely reached Venezuela and all illegal aliens on board were returned home."

The earthquakes, described in the report as 7.2 magnitude and 7.5 magnitude, killed over 2,000 people and leveled buildings across the country on June 24, with thousands more still missing.

In the U.S. court fight over Venezuelans’ Temporary Protected Status, Adelys Ferro said she would refresh Court Listener every half hour until courts informed the fate of thousands of Venezuelans at risk of imminent deportation.

Ferro told BBC Mundo that the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco declined to stay an order blocking the secretary of Homeland Security's decision to end TPS, and she said the court's decision was unanimous.

Euronews

She said, "I am very proud that, beyond political ideologies, the judges are ruling in favor of justice and due process in order to protect vulnerable people," as the Supreme Court suspended deportation of a group of Venezuelans while the case is heard in lower courts.

Le Monde reported that about 600,000 Venezuelans living in the United States were granted a new stay of removal on Friday, August 29, and that a federal appeals court upheld a March ruling barring the Trump administration from revoking TPS.

Le Monde quoted Judge Kim Wardlaw saying the abolition measure sought by the Trump administration "reeks of racism to the core" and wrongly portrayed the people involved as criminals.

As the disaster’s aftermath unfolded, Folha de S.Paulo reported that Venezuela blocked access to the site where deportees from the U.S. died, with Yeison Lamus, 47, trying to reach the epicenter in La Guaira state to find his brother.

“Yeison Lamus, 47, crossed roughly half of Venezuela, from the border state of Táchira to the epicenter of the disaster caused by the earthquakes a week ago, the state of La Guaira, in search of his brother”

Folha de S.Paulo

The report said Venezuela’s intelligence agency, Sebin, barred the press and relatives of victims from accessing the surroundings of the area where the deportees were, and it described the area as completely destroyed with dozens still under the rubble.

It added that the report was blocked at the site in Macuto, La Guaira state, and that Yeison and his family were denied access as a tractor sat stopped among the rubble.

Folha de S.Paulo also reported that public information from Vuelta la Pátria said the 146 migrants arrived in the afternoon of the day of the earthquake at Maiquetía International Airport coming from Miami, Florida, with 120 men, 9 women and 7 children.

In the same account, the family of Jhonattan, 40, said they received no assistance and that as of a week after the earthquakes they did not know his whereabouts, after being denied access to the site and then to the state’s general hospital.