Venezuela says it will start accepting repatriation flights from the U.S. again

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

March 23, 2025 5:43 PM ET


Venezuela has announced that it will resume accepting flights of its citizens who are deported by U.S. immigration authorities. Jorge Rodríguez, the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, said on Saturday in a post on social media that the repatriation flights would begin again as early as Sunday. "Migration is not a crime," he added.

Rodríguez, who has been negotiating with U.S. officials on immigration issues, said Venezuelan authorities "will not rest" until they secure the return of any citizens who require it. The White House did not immediately reply to NPR's request for comment on Sunday.

In his statement, Rodríguez also alluded to the deportation of some Venezuelans to El Salvador earlier in March, when President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in order to target alleged members of a violent Venezuelan prison gang.

A total of 238 Venezuelans were deported in that operation, which remains under scrutiny by a federal judge who had attempted to block the deportation flights and continues to seek information from the Trump administration about why they went ahead. Of the 238, the Trump administration said 137 people were deported under the Alien Enemies Act and 101 were deported under regular immigration proceedings.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/23/nx-s1-5338005/venezuela-resume-accepting-deportation-flights-us

[progree]

1. "and 101 were deported under regular immigration proceedings."

does that mean these were just regular Venezuelans and not alleged gang members? Sent to the Cecot prison in El Salvador, the most awful-reputation prison in the entire hemisphere? I read the entire article and can't find anything more on this.

I know there have been plenty of allegations that they weren't all gang members, but is this effectively a flat-out admission of that?

Of the 238, the Trump administration said 137 people were deported under the Alien Enemies Act and 101 were deported under regular immigration proceedings.

Also interesting background:

Venezuela stopped accepting repatriation flights from the U.S. on March 8. It came after Trump announced that the U.S. would cancel the Biden-era permit that allowed California-based Chevron to extract and export oil from Venezuela, a major source of revenue for the country.

But last week Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the Trump administration would impose "new, severe, and escalating sanctions" on the country unless it began accepting migrants again.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I think this is the issue that the judge has about exactly WHO was sent to CECOT

and whether there were some "mistakes" (as some family members are alleging). And that is why the threats of invoking the "State Secrets Privilege" (a tool with court precedent from the case - "United States v. Reynolds" ), to force the judiciary to stipulate to the executive branch claims. There was an attempt under the final years of Shrub, to clarify the use of such a privilege -

House

H.R.5607 - To provide safe, fair, and responsible procedures and standards for resolving claims of state secret privilege.

Senate

S.2533 - State Secrets Protection Act

Neither went anywhere.

The attempts were to address the problems that were arising with NSA's "Warrantless wiretapping" and the renditions that were going on. I wouldn't be surprised if John Yoo was involved in this nonsense once more.

(ETA - now I gotta climb out of yet ANOTHER rabbit hole )