Deportation flights to Venezuela to begin ‘within the next 30 days’

President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, made plainly clear how a Latin American nation – considered a U.S. adversary – will help the president deliver on a promise that carried him to the White House.

Homan expected flights carrying Venezuelan migrants in the United States back to Venezuela to begin “within the next 30 days,” he said in an interview with the New York Times.

It was the first indication of a timeline for the plan to send people back to Venezuela after Trump’s announcement that his government had struck a deal with the country’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Last week, the Trump administration said that it had secured the freedom of six Americans in Venezuelan custody and convinced Maduro to receive deportation flights that would carry “all Venezuela illegal aliens” living in the United States.

In return, Maduro, who is accused of stealing a recent election and committing major human rights violations, received a very public visit from a top Trump adviser, Richard Grenell.

The two shook hands, smiling, as Venezuela’s top legislator, Jorge Rodríguez, beamed in the background. Later, Maduro’s government released an announcement affirming its commitment to “dialogue among equals.”

Just days after the meeting with Grenell, Maduro proposed implementing a loan program for returning migrants that would have an initial budget of $10 million.

For Maduro, who is increasingly isolated on the global stage, the Grenell meeting was a major win. U.S. diplomats left Venezuela in 2019. Since then, there have been only a few, very private meetings between United States and Venezuelan officials.

The Venezuelan government has not yet confirmed that it will take deportees. But if the deal goes through, it has the potential to mark a significant shift in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship.

During the first Trump administration, Trump did everything he could to try to oust Maduro, issuing crushing economic sanctions, throwing his weight behind an opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, and even placing a $15 million bounty on Maduro’s head, accusing him of narco-terrorism.

As a growing number of Venezuelans fled to the United States, the Venezuelan government in turn refused to take deportation flights.

Now, the dynamic has changed. Trump needs Maduro to accomplish one of his signature campaign pledges: deporting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have arrived on U.S. soil in recent years.

And it seems that Maduro knows that, and it’s not the only advantage he holds.

At least five other Americans and two foreigners with U.S. residency status remain in detention in Venezuela, according to the human rights group Foro Penal, giving the Venezuelan government significant leverage over the Trump administration.

Further U.S. policy changes could involve the lifting of sanctions on Venezuela’s vital oil sector and the return of direct commercial flights between the United States and Caracas.

Such moves are likely to anger the Venezuelan opposition led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, the man widely believed to have won a July presidential vote. Machado has argued that Maduro is weak and that global leaders should continue a policy of isolation to push him out.

Any actions by the United States seen as beneficial to Venezuela could also put Trump and Grenell, who is Trump’s envoy for special missions, at odds with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has long argued for a more hardline approach against Maduro, and in 2022, he even said that deporting Venezuelans back home would be a “very real death sentence.”

In his interview with the Times, Homan, the border czar, said that deportation flights to Venezuela were likely to take off soon.

“It’s going to happen within the next 30 days, and I can’t tell you how many – we’re still working on all those details,” he said.

“It’s huge. It’s a great thing that President Trump got,” Homan added. His hope is that there is a regular cadence of deportation flights.

“I don’t think President Trump is going to accept anything less,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans live in the United States, many with short-term protections that Trump has recently revoked, making them vulnerable to deportation in the coming months.

Under Maduro’s leadership, the country has experienced one of the worst economic and humanitarian crises in recent history, spurring roughly 8 million people to flee in the last decade. Initially, most went to other countries in Latin America. But since the pandemic, many have gone to the United States, often trudging thousands of miles on foot and by bus to get to the southern border.

At the end of his first term, Trump shielded vulnerable Venezuelans from deportation, saying it was too dangerous for many of them to return.

Since then, the economic situation in Venezuela has not improved to any significant degree, while the political situation in the country has only worsened, with Maduro rounding up those he considers political opponents – and sometimes mere bystanders – following the contested election.

His government, however, has argued that conditions have improved, paving the way for people to be sent home.

“There is no factual basis to say that Venezuela is in better shape,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, a Venezuela expert at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “This is a political decision.”

In an interview, Juan González, who served as President Joe Biden’s top adviser on Latin America, said that for years, U.S. policy toward Venezuela has been hamstrung by hard-liners in Florida who criticize any kind of dialogue with Maduro, asserting that isolation was the route to restoring Venezuelan democracy.

González said he thought that Grenell, in his role as liaison to Venezuela, might be opting for a more realistic approach, focused on achieving U.S. national security goals – at first, that might include getting Maduro to accept deportees, but it could also include other U.S. priorities, like pushing Venezuela away from China.

And if that was the case, González, a Democrat, supported Grenell’s efforts.

“I don’t agree with Ric Grenell on a whole lot,” he said. “But I’m rooting for him. In the Rubio-Grenell competition, I think he’s really the best option.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.