{"id":1244,"date":"2026-06-29T21:38:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T21:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=1244"},"modified":"2026-06-29T21:38:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T21:38:52","slug":"more-than-100-venezuelans-who-were-deported-from-the-us-hours-before-the-earthquakes-are-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=1244","title":{"rendered":"More than 100 Venezuelans who were deported from the US hours before the earthquakes are missing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MIAMI (AP) \u2014 More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.<\/p>\n

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A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday\u2019s earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.<\/p>\n

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday\u2019s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried \u2026 there was no communication,\u201d Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela. <\/p>\n

They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was born again; God gave me a second chance,\u201d said Portillo. \u201cI am traumatized,\u201d she said after a pause, weeping.<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed.<\/p>\n

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They survived the earthquake the same day that were deported from the U.S.<\/h2>\n

Portillo was caught up in the Trump administration\u2019s drive for mass deportations. In May, ICE Flight Monitor tracked 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile and the Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n

The U.S. ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela in May, operating three days a week, according to ICE Flight Monitor. Deportation flights to Venezuela resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause. <\/p>\n

Portillo said the government took them to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they underwent medical exams and got identification documents. They were told they would go home the next day. <\/p>\n

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Portillo was staying in a second floor room with 16 other women. She stepped onto a balcony to look at the sea and saw that the sky was black; it was very hot. She returned to the room, laid on a bed, and began to feel herself being shaken.<\/p>\n

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