Over 100 Venezuelans deported from the US are missing after quakes
More than 100 Venezuelans who were deported from the United States just hours before deadly earthquakes struck the country are now missing, according to survivors. The group of 146 people had been held at Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira when 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude tremors collapsed the building on June 24. Their disappearance has triggered a scramble to find survivors and bodies in the rubble.
Key Takeaways
- A deportation flight from Miami carrying 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, arrived hours before twin earthquakes struck on June 24.
- Authorities placed the group at Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira; the hotel collapsed when the tremors hit.
- Survivors report more than 100 recently deported Venezuelans remain missing, with only about a dozen believed to have escaped alive.
- Families are searching hospitals and morgues while officials have released no official victim list for the deportee group.
- Advocates link the tragedy to President Donald Trump's mass deportation push as tens of thousands remain unaccounted for nationwide.
What Happened to the Deported Venezuelans?
According to KCRA, more than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela. A deportation flight from Miami arrived hours before Wednesday's quakes, carrying 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, a Human Rights First initiative.
The Venezuelans were taken to Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira, one of the hardest-hit areas. Survivor Elizabeth Portillo, 58, said the government brought deportees to the hotel for medical exams and identification documents and told them they would go home the next day.
Portillo was on a second-floor room with 16 others when shaking began. She stepped onto a balcony, saw the sky turn black, and felt intense heat before the building gave way. "I fall and end up buried and covered by a beam, but the shaking shifted everything where I was buried and I was able to get out," she said. She escaped with about 20 other deportees.
Why Are More Than 100 Venezuelans Still Missing?
Five days after the earthquakes, most deportees on that flight remain unaccounted for. The Miami Herald reported that Oswadeliz Núñez Ramírez has searched hospitals in La Guaira and Caracas for her 28-year-old son, Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, among the 146 migrants deported through Venezuela's Vuelta a la Patria program.
A Bolivarian National Intelligence Service officer identified as "Jonathan" told Núñez Ramírez he had pulled her son from the rubble. Yet five days later, his location remains unknown. His mother has searched every hospital, clinic, and sector of La Guaira and Caracas without success, including the Caracas morgue.
"I am here trying to see if my son is here, because I don't know where he is," she told the Herald. At the hotel site, she found it almost completely collapsed. She said only about a dozen survivors escaped by pulling themselves from the rubble.
Why Does This Case Matter Beyond Venezuela?
Common Dreams reported that tens of thousands of people still have not been found after the earthquakes, including Venezuelans just deported under President Donald Trump's mass deportation push. The outlet cited Associated Press reporting and Human Rights First data showing deportees were in the hotel when the temblors hit.
The Venezuelan government posted video of deportees being received at the airport. But families say they have received little official information about victims from the deportee group, leaving relatives to navigate collapsed buildings and overwhelmed hospitals alone.
Cases where people vanish after deportation into an active disaster zone raise urgent accountability questions. For more on disappearances and unsolved cases, see our True Crime & Unsolved Mysteries coverage.