A repatriation flight carrying 146 Venezuelans from the United States landed just hours before back-to-back earthquakes flattened the hotel where the Venezuelan government had placed them, and now more than 100 of those deportees are missing or unaccounted for, with at least one confirmed dead.
The flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela around 10 a.m. on June 24, according to a group that tracks deportation flights. By that evening, the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes had struck the coast of Venezuela seconds apart, collapsing buildings across the region and killing at least 1,719 people. Among the structures destroyed was Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where the deportees had been sent upon arrival.
The result is a grim convergence: a routine U.S. deportation operation delivered scores of people directly into the path of one of the worst natural disasters in Venezuelan history. The Venezuelan government housed them in a building that did not survive the night. And the families left behind in the United States are now searching for answers that no one, not Washington, not Caracas, seems prepared to give.
ABC News reported accounts from multiple family members describing the sequence of events. Rosvelis Boscan Chacin, a 47-year-old father of seven, called his daughter at 3 p.m. on June 24, five hours after the flight touched down.
His daughter, who was not named, told ABC News what he said in that call:
"He called me at 3 p.m. asking for my address, but he said [the government] wouldn't be taking him to my home that same day."
That was the last contact she described. Boscan Chacin's status after the hotel collapsed remains unknown. His daughter told ABC News simply:
"He was the pillar of our family, a father to seven kids."
Whether the earthquakes struck before or after that 3 p.m. phone call is not clear from available accounts. What is clear is that the Venezuelan government directed the deportees to a hotel that would not survive the day.
The story of Johana Pineda, her husband Richard Pereira, and their seven-year-old son Richi adds another layer. The family had been living in Tennessee since 2023 and was seeking asylum. They were detained at what ABC News described as a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two days later, they were on a repatriation flight to Venezuela.
Within hours of landing, they were at Hotel Santuario La Llanada. Then the earthquakes hit.
Richard Pereira did not survive. His wife Johana and their son Richi escaped with minor physical injuries, according to Luisa Quintero, Pineda's niece, who spoke to ABC News from the United States. Quintero said she learned of her family's deportation not through any official notification but through social media.
"I found out they were in Venezuela because I saw my little cousin in a video the government posted."
A Venezuelan government official had posted a video on X showing the group of deportees after their arrival, stating that 146 people were aboard the flight. That post, apparently intended as a routine announcement, became the way at least one American-based family member discovered her relatives had been sent back, and into danger.
Quintero described the aftermath plainly:
"My aunt is devastated and my little cousin is traumatized."
The ABC News report did not specify the city where Hotel Santuario La Llanada was located. But the Associated Press reported that the hotel sat in La Guaira, one of the areas hardest hit by the twin earthquakes. The AP also provided additional detail on the flight: it carried 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and 7 children, and departed from Miami.
Survivors from the hotel described harrowing escapes. Lisbeth Portillo, a 58-year-old deportee, told the AP: "I was born again; God gave me a second chance. I am traumatized." Jenny Rodriguez, 24, described being pinned under debris: "I was trapped under the rubble. 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."
Portillo told the AP she escaped with approximately 20 other deportees. Most of the others remained trapped.
The broader earthquake toll is staggering. Officials reported at least 1,719 dead and 5,034 injured across Venezuela, with rescue operations still underway five days after the disaster. Thousands remained missing.
The flight that delivered these deportees to Venezuela was not an isolated event. The AP reported that the United States ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela in May 2025 alone, operating three days a week. Those flights resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause. The June 24 flight was part of an ongoing, routine operation.
The Washington Examiner reported that more than 100 of the 146 deportees from the Miami flight remained missing after the hotel collapse. The Examiner also noted the broader context of Venezuela's mass emigration crisis and the recent capture of former dictator Nicolas Maduro, a reminder that the country these deportees were returned to was already in turmoil before the ground started shaking.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. Neither ICE nor any U.S. government agency has publicly commented on the situation of the deported individuals caught in the earthquake, based on available reporting. The Venezuelan government has not issued any specific statement about the fate of the deportees at the hotel beyond the initial social media post announcing their arrival.
No one has explained why all 146 deportees appear to have been directed to a single hotel rather than released to family members. Boscan Chacin's 3 p.m. phone call suggests he asked to be taken to his daughter's home but was told it would not happen that day. Instead, the Venezuelan government warehoused the group at Hotel Santuario La Llanada, a decision that, in hindsight, concentrated more than 100 people in a building that could not withstand the earthquakes.
The confirmed death toll among the deportees specifically remains unclear. Richard Pereira is the only named fatality from the group, reported by his family. How many others died, how many escaped, and how many remain under the rubble are questions that neither government has publicly addressed.
The identity of the group that tracked the deportation flight and reported its 10 a.m. arrival has not been disclosed. The Venezuelan government official who posted the video on X has not been fully identified in public reporting. The specific immigration case circumstances of the deportees, beyond the Pineda-Pereira family's asylum claim, have not been detailed.
There is no serious argument against a nation's right to enforce its immigration laws and deport people who lack legal status. That principle is not in question. The Pineda-Pereira family was detained at a routine ICE check-in. The deportation flight operated on a regular schedule. The process, by all available accounts, followed standard procedure.
But process does not end at the tarmac. When the United States places 146 people on a plane and sends them to a country run by a government that warehouses them in a single coastal hotel, in a nation already defined by institutional collapse, the question of what happens next is not someone else's problem. It is a foreseeable consequence of a policy choice.
The Venezuelan government's decision to concentrate the deportees at Hotel Santuario La Llanada was the proximate cause of their exposure to the earthquake. No one in Washington caused the earthquakes. But the lack of any apparent coordination, any contingency, any follow-through beyond the flight manifest is worth examining, not to undermine deportation policy, but to ensure it is executed with the competence that serious governance demands.
A seven-year-old boy named Richi survived the collapse that took his father. His mother is alive but, in her niece's words, devastated. More than 100 other deportees remain unaccounted for. Rescue teams are still digging through rubble across Venezuela.
Enforcing the law is the right thing to do. But a government that prides itself on strength ought to know where the people it deported ended up, and whether they're still alive.
