March 24 (UPI) — A plane of people deported by the Trump administration landed in Venezuela, the first since that country agreed to restart repatriation flights. The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs posted to X Sunday evening that “deportation flights of Venezuelan illegal aliens to their homeland resumed via Honduras” and that the agency expects “to see a consistent flow of deportation flights to Venezuela going forward.”
The New York Times reported immigration activist Thomas Cartwright, who tracks deportation flights on a volunteer basis, used data to show that a plane operated by ICE was set to arrive Sunday at Soto Cano air base in Honduras — a location that the U.S. had previously used as a transfer point for deportees.
A plane from Venezuelan state airline Conviasa was also set to arrive at Soto Cano at approximately the same time for what appeared to be a handoff.
Honduras’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Reina posted to X Sunday that “in cooperation with Honduras, the U.S. and Venezuela, humanitarian actions are once again being carried out to transfer Venezuelan migrants from the U.S. to Venezuela” through Soto Cano, where “199 citizens of Venezuelan origin” were being transferred from a “U.S.-flagged plane to a Venezuelan-flagged plane.”
Venezuela’s National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez posted to Instagram Saturday that his country has “agreed with the U.S. government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants” with Sunday’s flight.
Sunday’s deportation flight was the fourth flight of deportees to be accepted by Venezuela since the start of the current Trump administration.