A U.S. deportation flight that arrived in Venezuela on June 24 became part of a wider disaster story when twin major earthquakes struck the country that evening. In La Guaira, where many of the deportees were taken after landing, relatives and survivors say dozens remain missing after the hotel housing them collapsed.
146 deportees arrived in Venezuela hours before the earthquakes
A deportation flight from Miami landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Venezuela at 10:22 a.m. local time on June 24 with 146 Venezuelans on board, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, a project run by Human Rights First, and reporting by AP and Reuters. Survivors said the group was later taken to Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira and told they would return home the next day.
That same evening, twin earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck Venezuela at about 6 p.m. local time, according to UNICEF’s situation report citing official and seismic data. La Guaira was among the hardest-hit areas, and the hotel where the deportees were staying collapsed during the shaking, according to AP.
AP reported that more than 100 of the recently deported Venezuelans were missing after the collapse. Reuters reported that relatives of passengers on the flight told the news agency that only 12 people had made it out of the rubble on their own. Lisbeth Portillo, a 58-year-old survivor interviewed by AP, said she escaped with about 20 other deportees and walked for help after the building came down.
The known impact is concentrated in La Guaira, the coastal state that includes Venezuela’s main international airport and some of the country’s worst earthquake damage. UNICEF identified La Guaira as a disaster zone where intensive search-and-rescue operations remained underway, while AP described it as one of the hardest-hit areas after the June 24 quakes.
For families of the deportees, the search has unfolded largely through phone calls, social media posts and missing-person flyers. Reuters reported that relatives used social media to find one another and share names and photos of those believed to have been inside the collapsed hotel. Some families have confirmed that loved ones survived, while others say they have received no information at all.
What remains unknown is the full accounting of everyone who was taken from the flight to the hotel and whether all 146 passengers were inside when the building fell. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to AP’s request for information, and authorities have not released a comprehensive public list matching passengers to survivors, the injured, the dead or the missing.
The missing-person crisis grew out of two overlapping realities: the resumption of regular U.S. deportation flights to Venezuela and a major earthquake emergency. AP reported that deportation flights to Venezuela resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause, and that the U.S. ran 12 such flights in May 2026, operating three days a week.
Reuters reported that some passengers on the June 24 flight had spent months in U.S. immigration detention before removal. After landing, they were transferred into Venezuelan government custody for processing and temporary lodging, according to survivor accounts cited by AP. That placed them in La Guaira just hours before the strongest earthquakes to hit Venezuela in more than a century, as Reuters and AP both reported.
The broader earthquake toll has continued to rise as rescue efforts stretch on. AP reported Tuesday that the Venezuelan government had put the death toll at 1,943, with more than 10,500 injured and thousands still missing. For residents and families tied to the deportation flight, the immediate reality is that the search remains active, but authorities still have not publicly provided a complete accounting of the deportees from that day’s arrival.