The U.S. Deported 146 Venezuelans to Venezuela Hours Before the Earthquake Killed Most of Them. Now It’s Pledging $300 Million in Aid

In a recent voice note to his mother, Angelo Mejía Meléndez told her how much he loved her, according to NPR. He also shared that his bosses in Miami had bought a new Jet Ski and named it after him, because things were going well at the pier. “I love you so much,” he told her. “If I were to be born again, I would want you to be my mother.”

On June 24, Mejía Meléndez, 27, was deported from the United States on a flight from Miami. He was one of 146 Venezuelan nationals on board. The flight landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in La Guaira at 10:22 a.m., according to ICE Flight Monitor, a Human Rights First initiative that tracks deportation flights. Venezuelan authorities transferred the group to Hotel Santuario La Llanada for overnight processing. That evening, two earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck the northern coast of Venezuela within seconds of each other. The hotel collapsed.

His mother, Luz Marina Meléndez, learned he had died when a survivor told her he had watched her son perish beside him. The family had planned a reunion that same weekend.

The Deportation Flight Landed Hours Before One of the Worst Earthquakes in Venezuela’s History

The 146 people on board the flight from Miami included 19 women and 7 children, according to ICE Flight Monitor. The Trump administration deported the group as part of its ongoing mass deportation campaign. In May alone, the U.S. ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela, operating three days a week, removing 1,746 Venezuelans from the country that month. Deportation flights to Venezuela had resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause.

The June 24 flight was routine, and it landed on time. Then the ground moved.

The two earthquakes struck within seconds of each other and caused widespread destruction across La Guaira, killing at least 1,943 people as of CNN’s July 1 reporting, with the United Nations estimating 50,000 people missing, according to NBC News. The airport where the deportees had landed hours earlier sits in the middle of one of the hardest-hit zones.

The Venezuelan Government Put Them in a Hotel That Collapsed

Upon arrival, Venezuelan authorities transferred the deportees to Hotel Santuario La Llanada, a facility run by the Misión Hipólita Foundation, a body affiliated with the Caracas government. There, the group underwent medical exams and received identification documents, according to survivor Lisbeth Portillo, 58, speaking to PBS. They were told they would go home the next day.

Portillo told the media she stepped onto a balcony to look at the sea and noticed the sky had turned black and the heat was unusual. She returned to her room, lay on a bed, and then the shaking began. “I started hearing ‘papa, papa papapa,’” she told PBS, describing the sounds. “They were all screaming for help.” She fell and ended up buried under a beam. The second quake shifted the debris around her, and she managed to get out.

Ninoska Gutierrez, 45, another deportee who survived, told CNN that she ran out of her room barefoot.

“When I open the door of the room, I see a huge number of people running,” she said. “I was running — sort of stepping aside to let them pass so I wouldn’t get run over — when the wall right next to me suddenly split apart; as it broke, I felt like I was floating in mid-air.” She told CNN she removed the debris from her legs and crawled out through a hole that had opened in the ceiling.

Jenny Rodriguez, 24, told the Telemundo network that she had been trapped. “A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help,” she said, according to PBS. “Thanks to God — and to him — I was able to get out of there.”

Portillo walked approximately five kilometers with about 20 other survivors until they reached a National Guard building. From there, she called her husband in the United States. “I said to him, ‘Cesar, I’m alive. Help me.’ And my husband kept saying, ‘It can’t be,’” she told PBS. She told him she was alive and had made it out of the rubble.

“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” she said. “I am traumatized.”

Families Have Spent Days Searching Hospitals, Morgues, and Rubble

The families of those still missing describe days of silence from authorities and searches that led nowhere.

Alonso Guanipa Toyo told NPR his brother, Víctor, 32, is among the missing. Víctor had lived in Pecos, Texas, working construction during the day and driving for a rideshare company at night. His brother told NPR that Víctor was detained by immigration authorities on June 12, while he and his wife were at a nightclub. He had no criminal record and was in the United States legally, according to Alonso Guanipa Toyo. “The government is not doing anything,” he told NPR. “My family is looking for him in the hospitals, in the shelters, in the morgues.”

Oswadeliz Nuñez shared that her son, Daniel, called her approximately 30 minutes before the earthquake struck to say he had landed in Venezuela. She has not heard from him since. “In those four minutes, he told me a lot of things — that we were going to live in Venezuela together, that we were going to keep going,” she said. “That happiness lasted 30 minutes.” Her son, Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, 28, had been living in Jacksonville, Florida, for almost five years, working in construction. His only offenses were crossing the border illegally and a misdemeanor for driving without a license. He was arrested on his way to work in May.

Enit Hernández told NBC News her husband, José Rafael Rossi Ydrogo, is also missing.

She said he was detained during a routine ICE check-in and was told a judge would review his case before he was deported anyway. In Fort Worth, Rossi Ydrogo owned a construction business and remodeled homes. He had called his brother in Caracas 20 minutes before the earth started shaking. “My entire life changed in just one day,” Hernández told NBC News. “There was no need for him to go through all of this. I’m here alone with my daughter now.”

Yulis Salcedo had decorated her home with blue, yellow, and red balloons in the colors of Venezuela’s flag to welcome her 21-year-old son, Anderson, home. He had called at 5 p.m. to tell her he loved her and that he would see her at home the next day. Anderson survived the collapse but is now in a hospital. His legs were amputated. “I want justice because it’s not fair that my son is lying in that bed, with respiratory support, with his legs amputated at the age of 21,” Salcedo said.

ICE Says Its Responsibility Ended at the Airport

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told CNN that ICE was not responsible for the deportees when the earthquakes struck. “This flight safely reached Venezuela, and all illegal aliens on board were returned home,” the spokesperson said. “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.”

The State Department declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NPR’s request for comment on whether deportations to Venezuela would continue in the wake of the disaster.

Oswadeliz Nuñez told NPR what she thought of all of it. “Venezuelans are not animals,” she said. “They are humans, not criminals. My son paid taxes.”

No Government Would Count the Dead and Missing. A Venezuelan American Did.

With no official tally from Venezuelan or U.S. authorities, Katherine Arana, a Venezuelan American from Greenville, South Carolina, created a spreadsheet to track the people on the flight, according to NBC News. Arana is a friend of Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, one of the missing. As of Monday, her records showed that at least 25 deportees had been killed, 21 remained missing, and 9 had survived. Some bodies recovered from the rubble had not yet been identified.

Il Sole 24 Ore reported that only 12 of 147 deportees survived. The Venezuelan agency responsible for receiving the deportees declined to tell NPR how many had survived, sending a statement through WhatsApp saying that families had been informed of the status of their loved ones, a claim that multiple family members disputed directly.

Multiple relatives told NBC News that authorities had not allowed them or rescue workers near the collapsed building, making it nearly impossible to obtain information or confirm the fate of those still unaccounted for.

The Same Administration That Deported Them Has Now Pledged $300 Million in Aid

The U.S. government has committed more than $300 million in earthquake relief to Venezuela and deployed search-and-rescue teams. In the month of May alone, that same government removed 1,746 Venezuelans from the country on deportation flights. The Department of Homeland Security says its responsibility ended when the plane touched down.

The family of Angelo Mejía Meléndez identified his body by a pizza tattoo on his arm. His best friend, Georgelyss Montes, told NPR about the last time she saw him, four years ago, at a goodbye party before he left for the United States. “We were like, ‘You are stupid for leaving us!’” she said.

“We grew up together,” Montes told NPR. “It’s so hard.”