Venezuela sends 2 planes to US to return migrants, signaling a potential improvement in relations

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Two Venezuelan planes returned home Monday with about 190 Venezuelans deported from the United States, signaling a possible thaw in relations between two longtime diplomatic adversaries and a victory for President Donald Trump in his efforts to get more countries to take their people back.

Deportation flights from the U.S. to Venezuela have been halted for years except for a brief period in October 2023 during the Biden administration. Venezuelans began showing up at the U.S. border with Mexico in large numbers in 2021 and are currently one of the largest nationalities entering illegally, making Venezuela's refusal to take them back a major challenge for the U.S.

The breakthrough came after Trump envoy Richard Grennell visited Caracas earlier this month.

“Flights of Illegal Aliens to Venezuela Resume,” the White House said Monday in a post on the social platform X, saying they were overseen by Grennell.

Venezuelan television and radio triumphantly covered the arrival of the Conviasa flights in Caracas from Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base in El Paso, Texas.

“This is the world we want, a world of peace, understanding, dialogue and cooperation,” said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro

The Venezuelan government confirmed the flights earlier in a statement that took issue with an “ill-intentioned” and “false” narrative around the presence of members of the Tren de Aragua gang in the U.S. It said most Venezuelan immigrants are decent, hard-working people and that U.S. officials sought to stigmatize the South American country.

Monday's flights came days after the first flights of immigrants to a U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck agreements with El Salvador and Guatemala for those countries to take people who were not their citizens.

A federal judge in New Mexico on Sunday preemptively blocked the transfer of three Venezuelan men to Guantanamo Bay. In their request for a temporary halt, lawyers for the men said their clients "fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantanamo, i.e. Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang."

Trump wrote after Grennell's visit that the Maduro government had agreed to receive "all Venezuela illegal aliens who were encamped in the U.S., including gang members of Tren de Aragua," and pay for their transportation. Six Americans held in Venezuela were released at the time.

In its statement Monday, the Venezuelan government didn't comment on any future flights.

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Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda from Caracas, Venezuela, contributed.