US ICE Deportation Flight Drops 146 Venezuelans Before La Guaira Hotel Collapse

Over 100 Venezuelans deported from the United States were missing after the hotel where they were staying collapsed in back-to-back earthquakes in Venezuela, with a deportation flight from Miami landing in Venezuela on Wednesday and dropping off 146 Venezuelans.

“After spending nearly eight months in detention facilities across the United States, Jose Enrique Ojeda Duarte was finally deported to his native Venezuela in early April”

Chicago Tribune

The deportees were sent to a hotel in La Guaira, and the earthquakes that followed included a 7.2 and a 7.5 magnitude event, with the main earthquake on June 24, 2026 followed by a 7.5-magnitude aftershock less than a minute later.

Human Rights Watch

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help in La Guaira, one of the areas hardest hit by the 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

Portillo described reaching a National Guard building to call relatives and said, “I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” adding, “I am traumatized,” after a pause, weeping.

Oswadeliz Núñez Ramírez said she has been searching for her son across hospitals in La Guaira and Caracas for five days after he was among 146 migrants deported from the United States who arrived in Venezuela on the day two powerful earthquakes struck.

A member of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service who identified himself only as “Jonathan” told Núñez Ramírez that he had personally pulled her 28-year-old son, Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, from the rubble of the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, which collapsed during the tremors.

Le Figaro

Núñez Ramírez said her son’s whereabouts remain a mystery and told the Miami Herald from the Caracas morgue, “He’s nowhere to be found,” while her cousin Fátima Gabriela Núñez said the area around the hotel is under intelligence service guard.

She also said the Venezuelan government’s account was false, telling the Miami Herald, “They reported that rescue teams were working in the zone, and they even told my aunt that my cousin had been rescued and to look for him in the hospitals.”

The death toll and missing figures reported across outlets diverged, with Caracas putting the death toll at over 1,700 as of Monday while WJLA’s image caption said the number of fatal victims increased to more than 1000 and that more than 70,000 people are reported missing.

“Venezuela: arrival in Caracas of the first plane carrying migrants expelled from the United States”

Le Figaro

The Independent said the Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed, and it described the deportation flight arriving in Caracas hours before Wednesday’s earthquakes with 146 Venezuelans on board.

In the aftermath, the Miami Herald reported that National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said the twin earthquakes left at least 1,719 dead, 5,034 injured, and 15,866 displaced from their homes.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told the Miami Herald, “This flight safely reached Venezuela and all illegal aliens on board were returned home,” and added, “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.”