Washington (AFP) – Venezuela will once more accept deportation flights from the United States, both sides said Thursday, weeks after Caracas suspended cooperation in protest over Washington stripping oil giant Chevron of a sanctions waiver.
“I am pleased to announce that Venezuela has agreed to resume flights to pick up their citizens who broke US Immigration Laws and entered the US illegally,” said Richard Grenell, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, in a social media post. Flights will resume Friday, he said.
Jorge Rodriguez, head of the Venezuelan National Assembly and an ally to President Nicolas Maduro, later confirmed the move in a post of his own. “Venezuela announces that, within the framework of the Return to the Homeland Plan, it has reached an agreement with the special envoy Richard Grenell to repatriate Venezuelan brothers and sisters who are in the United States,” he said.
Shortly after Trump took office in January, Grenell traveled to Venezuela to meet with officials on deporting migrants from the United States — a key campaign pledge of the Republican president. Grenell returned to the United States with six American prisoners and the promise, according to him, that Caracas would accept its nationals. Since then, 366 Venezuelans have been repatriated on flights by Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, which is under US sanctions.
However, in late February, Trump claimed Venezuela had not lived up to its promises, and revoked a sanctions waiver that had allowed Chevron to continue operating in the country. In response, Caracas said it would no longer accept the flights. Neither side said Thursday what had prompted Caracas to change its mind.
More than seven million Venezuelans have fled Venezuela, mostly to other Latin American countries, as Maduro has presided over economic collapse and political turmoil. The Trump administration in its first week of office said it was ready to deport some 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States who had been shielded from removal by president Joe Biden under a program for citizens of high-risk countries.
While Grenell agreed to meet with Maduro in January, the Trump administration does not officially recognize him as the legitimate president. It has instead followed the Biden administration in recognizing opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as the rightful winner of last year’s elections.
© 2024 AFP
