A plane from the United States carrying 266 Venezuelan migrants landed in Venezuela on Wednesday, according to Foreign Minister Yvan Gil speaking to Reuters.
The flight — an Eastern Airlines charter from Phoenix — was cleared to land at Maiquetía International Airport near Caracas after approval from Venezuela’s transportation ministry, the ministry said Tuesday in a statement reported by Reuters.
The resumption comes after a brief suspension of flights triggered when President Donald Trump wrote on social media that Venezuelan airspace should be considered “closed in its entirety,” a message that Caracas interpreted as a hostile move, according to reporting from CBS News.
Venezuelan officials responded to Trump’s airspace declaration by calling it a “colonialist threat,” a phrase used by Venezuela’s government in comments to CBS News.
Under pressure from Washington, the Venezuelan government accepted a formal U.S. request to resume deportation flights, clearing the way for the Phoenix-to-Maiquetía aircraft to proceed, according to Reuters.
The transportation ministry said in remarks carried by Reuters that the U.S. request represented a diplomatic overture that allowed the repatriation program to continue under negotiated terms.
Foreign Minister Gil told Reuters that “since the beginning of the year, at least 18,354 Venezuelans have arrived in the country on 95 flights, 76 of them directly from the United States,” underscoring the scale of the repatriation effort.
Supporters of the Trump administration say the flights are a necessary tool to dismantle violent networks such as the Tren de Aragua gang, which U.S. officials allege is operating inside the country and involved in drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other crimes, according to conservative policy analysts cited in U.S. media reports.
Administration officials also argue that ending permissive border policies reduces what they describe as a “pull factor,” a term they explain as the set of conditions in a destination country that encourage migrants to attempt entry, and they say fast deportation flights show that the United States will not provide an incentive for illegal crossings, according to comments from senior Homeland Security officials published in immigration briefings.
Critics warn that the repatriation flights — including earlier flights that sent Venezuelans to third countries under disputed circumstances — could violate due-process rights for people wrongly labeled as gang members, a concern raised by civil-rights groups in interviews with national outlets.
Trump supporters counter that the agreement forcing Caracas to accept deportees it had long refused demonstrates U.S. leverage and shows, in their view, that Washington will not tolerate what they call narco-regime aggression, according to statements from pro-administration lawmakers.
Even as deportation flights resume, the United States continues maintaining an elevated military presence in the Caribbean and targeting suspected drug-smuggling vessels, a strategy the Pentagon has described in briefings as a coordinated law-enforcement and national-security effort.
To many in the Trump administration, the return flights are part of a broader pressure campaign on the Caracas government to honor border obligations and confront internal criminal networks fueling migration flows, according to senior officials speaking in background interviews.
Observers say the renewed cooperation on deportation flights reflects a pragmatic balance in which Washington uses diplomacy, immigration enforcement and military strength to counter a regime it views as corrupt and destabilizing, according to analysts quoted in U.S. foreign-policy reporting.
For a conservative audience seeking firm immigration enforcement, the Phoenix-to-Maiquetía flight and the wider deportation program stand as evidence that the administration is enforcing the law, defending U.S. borders and using diplomacy to achieve strategic objectives, according to commentators aligned with the administration.
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