Venezuelan deportees from U.S. flight trapped in hotel collapse after rare twin earthquakes
Relatives of Venezuelans deported from the United States on Wednesday are scrambling for information after the hotel where they were being held collapsed that same night during a pair of rare and devastating earthquakes. The disaster has left scores dead, dozens missing, and families grappling with a tragic convergence of policy and nature.
A U.S. deportation flight carrying 146 people — among them 19 women and 7 children — touched down at Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar International Airport at 10:22 a.m. local time Wednesday, according to Venezuelan authorities and ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative by Human Rights First that tracks deportation flights.
The deportees were transferred to Hotel Santuario in La Guaira, a coastal city just north of Caracas. Hours later, two major earthquakes struck within seconds of each other — a rare seismic event in a region not typically prone to such frequency. The quakes caused widespread destruction across La Guaira, killing at least 1,700 people, with hundreds more still unaccounted for.
Some deportees managed to escape the hotel’s collapse, but many remain trapped under the rubble. Rescue teams have been working around the clock, but hope is fading as days pass without new survivors.
Luis Armando Dasilva said he and his family have spent five agonizing days searching for his sister, Amanda Donizete, who was deported Wednesday and has not been heard from since. “They are not giving us answers about where she is. If she is at a hospital or at the morgue. We have already checked all of that and we haven’t found her,” he told CNN.
Dasilva said Donizete had been working in the U.S. state of Georgia after fleeing Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. But when she learned she was being sent back, “she was very happy and wanted to see her family.”
Rescuers have been combing through the debris in a desperate search for survivors, but days after the initial disaster, the chances of finding anyone alive are slim.
Some relatives of those still missing told CNN they simply want the chance to give their loved ones a proper burial. “Please, those of you who are here, help us, help us,” pleaded José Gregorio Rincón Ávila, grandfather of a deportee. “We have been waiting many days. We already know those bodies have been there for several days since Wednesday, but at least let us take our loved ones home.”
Dasilva echoed the plea: “We want our family members — whatever condition they are in — we just want to be able to bury them.”
CNN has reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department for comment on the fate of Wednesday’s deportees.
The United States has sent search and rescue teams to Venezuela and committed more than $300 million to relief efforts so far. The aid underscores a complicated relationship: Washington continues to deport Venezuelan migrants even as it provides emergency assistance to the earthquake-stricken country.
In October, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 300,000 Venezuelan migrants, who had been permitted entry under a humanitarian relief program. Since then, the U.S. has been deporting hundreds of people per week to Venezuela. In May alone, 1,746 Venezuelans were deported, according to ICE Flight Monitor.
A video posted by a Venezuelan government official showed deportees arriving at Simón Bolívar airport Wednesday.
The wife of one deportee told CNN her husband had been in the U.S. for three years, building a better life for their family. He was detained by ICE for 15 days before being returned to Venezuela. “That’s when the tragedy happened,” she said, asking not to be identified. She said she has lost hope of ever seeing her husband alive again. “Since Friday we have been waiting for an answer to see if (the authorities) will hand over the bodies to us. Because they say there is no life.”
Yulis Salcedo said she had decorated her home with blue, yellow and red balloons — the colors of Venezuela’s flag — to welcome home her 21-year-old son Anderson, who was on the flight from Miami Wednesday morning. Anderson had arrived safely and was staying overnight in the La Guaira hotel before returning home, Salcedo told Reuters. “He called me at 5 p.m. and told me ‘I love you so much, Mom. See you tomorrow at home.’”
Now Anderson is fighting for his life in a hospital. “I want justice because it’s not fair that my son is lying in that bed, with respiratory support, with his legs amputated at the age of 21,” Salcedo said.
Rocio Muñoz-Ledo contributed reporting.