The first planeload of Venezuelan asylum seekers to be sent packing by the Biden regime departed from Texas on Wednesday as repatriation flights to the Latin American country resumed, the first such deportation in years.
Around 130 illegal aliens boarded the Boeing 737 jet in Harlingen, TX, briefly stopping in Miami, FL before arriving at their destination near Caracas, the capital of the once-thriving country that has been destroyed by socialism.
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would be resuming the direct repatriation of the border crossers after an agreement was struck with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at a time when the ongoing migrant invasion has become a political problem for Biden’s Democrats.
Acting executive associate director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Corey Price told the Associated Press, “This flight to Venezuela is the first I’ve seen in my career of an entire charter flight of Venezuelans going back to their country. And we plan on having several more of these in the coming days and weeks.”
The passengers were transported to their awaiting flight in buses with both men and women, who were wearing wrist and ankle restraints, getting a pat down search from immigration officers before boarding the airliner.
(Video: YouTube/Reuters)
“These are the consequences for entering our country unlawfully,” Price told reporters. “Unfortunately those that you know, take their lives and put them in the hands of smugglers, and their life savings and put them in the hands of smugglers are only going to get a flight home on one of these flights like this to go back to their country.”
“Today, the United States, led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with support from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, facilitated the first charter flight to Venezuela as part of other routine ICE removal flights conducted throughout the hemisphere and around the world. DHS continues to enforce United States immigration laws while strengthening the consequences for those who cross our border unlawfully,” DHS said in a Wednesday press release.
“Noncitizens, including Venezuelan nationals, who lack a lawful basis to stay in the United States are ordered removed, consistent with U.S. law. In keeping with standard practice, the United States ensures that all noncitizens, including Venezuelan nationals without a legal basis to remain in the United States are properly screened for valid protection claims and withholding of removal in accordance with our laws and U.S. international obligations. This applies to all noncitizens regardless of nationality to ensure the orderly and humane processing, transfer, and removal of single adults and family units,” the agency said.
“Returning thousands of Venezuelans to the same unimaginably dangerous conditions they just fled is a profoundly problematic policy for the world’s humanitarian leader to adopt,” Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said in a statement after it was announced that the administration would resume the deportations earlier this month.
“ICE Air Operations facilitates the transfer and removal of noncitizens, including family units, via commercial airlines and chartered flights in support of ICE field offices and other DHS initiatives. In fiscal year 2022, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted 72,177 removals to more than 150 countries worldwide,” DHS said in its statement on the resumption of the flights.