Stray Feathers: A Flurry of Returns
Return Flights to Venezuela: Women, Children, and Guantanamo Detainees Brought Back Home
Caracas, February 25, 2025 - The Venezuelan government has welcomed back a flock of its citizens, fresh off foreign shores, in a steady stream of recent repatriations.
On the break of Monday morning, a plane from Venezuela's state airline Conviasa touched down in the capital, carrying 242 countrymen and women from Mexico. Unlike previous repatriation flights, this group was not only composed of adult males but also comprised women and children.
Government officials, led by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, were at hand to greet the returned citizens at the Simón Bolívar International Airport. Cabello informed the press that the homecoming process had been coordinated with Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum administration and that more flights from Mexico were expected within the coming weeks.
"Various state institutions are braced to aid the returned citizens, ensuring their identities are registered and providing them with medical and psychological evaluations," Cabello said.
The minister could not confirm at the time whether the deportees had been sent from U.S. soil to Mexico or had never managed to cross into the U.S. border.
Cabello emphasized that the repatriation efforts were integral to the Nicolás Maduro government's "Return to the Homeland Plan," an initiative that has helped tens of thousands of Venezuelans reintegrate into their homeland since 2018.
He underscored that security bodies would run background checks on adults, but only for open cases or prior criminal records. Cabello rejected the narrative pushed by U.S. officials that all the deported Venezuelans were criminals.
"We enforce scrupulous background checks because we're informed we are receiving all sorts of outlaws from the U.S.," Cabello affirmed. "But this is merely a small minority."
Last week's repatriated group was the third to arrive in Venezuela following a high-profile meeting between Maduro and White House Special Envoy Richard Grenell in late January. According to reports, one of the main discussion points had been Caracas accepting deportation flights as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on migrants.
In a recent interview, Grenell stated that White House policy toward Venezuela was not centered on regime change and that Washington wanted a "different relationship" with the Venezuelan president.
On February 10, 190 Venezuelan nationals were transported to their homeland from a U.S. military base in Texas. Ten days later, a second group of 177 Venezuelans arrived from the U.S. base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, via Honduras.
Since the beginning of February, U.S. authorities began sending detainees, reportedly with final deportation orders, to their infamous overseas military facility. Legal aid organizations challenged the administration's move for its human rights violations, including depriving the arrested migrants from access to legal counsel.
Relatives of the detainees pleaded their innocence, with some arrested and transferred to the base after holding interviews with border authorities. The Maduro government likewise condemned the Guantánamo transfer as "unjust."
The February 20 flight cleared all detainees from the base. According to the New York Times, US authorities transferred 17 migrants to Guantánamo on Sunday, though it did not report any Venezuelan citizens among them.
One of the thornier aspects of U.S.-Venezuelan relations has been the issue of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan immigrants, with around 350,000 immigrants in the U.S. at risk of losing their status. TPS allows nationals of designated countries to remain in the U.S. temporarily due to conditions in their home countries that prevent them from returning safely.
In March 2025, the U.S. deported 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador under a controversial arrangement, though the legal status of such actions is subject to ongoing litigation. The U.S. government, under President Trump, invoked the Alien Enemies Act to target Venezuelan migrants associated with the criminal organization Tren de Aragua. This decision has led to legal challenges, including a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Democracy Forward on behalf of affected individuals.
The Maduro government has affirmed that Tren de Aragua has been dismantled in the country, instead alleging that the group's operations abroad are tied to Venezuelan far-right factions.
Edited by Cira Pascual Marquina from Caracas and José Luis Granados Ceja from Mexico City, Mexico.
- Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican government's administration, collaborated with Venezuela's Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello to coordinate the recent repatriation flights from Mexico.
- The Venezuelan government's "Return to the Homeland Plan," led by the Nicolás Maduro administration, aims to reintegrate tens of thousands of Venezuelans into their homeland since 2018, including the 242 citizens who recently returned from Mexico.
- Diosdado Cabello affirmed that security bodies would perform background checks on returning adults, but only for open cases or prior criminal records, not labeling all repatriated Venezuelans as criminals.
- The contents of a recent multidisciplinary evaluation, comprising identity registration, medical, and psychological assistance, were highlighted by Cabello for the benefit of the repatriated Venezuelans.
