On June 24, 2026, 147 Venezuelans deported from Texas landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía on flight 164 of the Great Mission Return to the Homeland.
Just a few hours later, the two most devastating earthquakes in Venezuela in over a century buried the building where the regime had confined them. Only 12 people have been reported alive, according to unofficial sources.
The group—120 men, 19 women, and seven children (five boys and two girls)—had survived weeks or months of detention in immigration centers in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Arizona before being expelled under the anti-immigration policy of the Trump administration.
His return to Venezuela, which was supposed to mark the end of a nightmare, turned into the worst nightmare of all.
Flight 164 and the transfer to the hotel
Upon arriving in Maiquetía, Mervin Maldonado, head of the Great Mission Return to the Homeland, shared a welcome video and posted on X:
“Today we received flight #164 of the Great Return to the Homeland Mission with 146 Venezuelans from the U.S. Welcome!”, reporting one less than the actual number.
From the airport, the deportees were taken by agents of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, an old building located in a mountainous area that is difficult to access in the state of La Guaira, managed by the Fundación Misión Negra Hipólita.
The facility, which used to be the San Benito School and served during the pandemic as a quarantine center for travelers infected with COVID-19, was the usual reception point for all Venezuelan deportees since the start of the agreement between Washington and Caracas.
There, they had to complete identification procedures, medical examinations, and vaccination protocols before being sent back to their places of origin.
Several managed to call their families.
Anderson Antonio Pérez, 33 years old, a resident of Montgomery, Alabama, called his family around four in the afternoon.
"He spoke with his wife, saying that they had arrived and that they were going to locate them to bring him here to Barquisimeto the next day, but after that, nothing more was heard from him," his sister reported to the local press.
The collapse and the accusation against SEBIN
At 6:04 PM local time on Wednesday, June 24, two earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 - separated by just 39 seconds - shook the north of Venezuela.
The Santuario La Llanada Hotel has collapsed.
According to testimonies from family members and survivors gathered by the Spanish newspaper El País and other media outlets, the SEBIN agents who were guarding the premises refused to open the doors while the building was collapsing.
"The repatriates were shouting for them to open the gate, to open the gate, because they were trembling, but they were not let in. They were left locked up as if they were thieves, as if they were murderers," denounced Yulis Salcedo, mother of one of the survivors.
Joan, 28 years old, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 13 in Florida and miraculously survived.
His wife Daniela recounted, "Just as he was about to reach the door, the hotel collapsed."
He says he survived because a bunk bed fell on top of him; the mattresses helped him bear the weight. He was trapped under the rubble for three hours, digging, and managed to get out on his own.
The survivor Jenny Rodríguez, interviewed by Noticias Telemundo, described the total abandonment.
"They left us alone there practically. We hadn't even been in that house for three hours when all this disaster started," she recounted, specifying that she had to go down barefoot from the mountain to the La Guaira stadium to be able to communicate with her family.
Without help, without tools, without official information
The survivors themselves began the rescue efforts with their bare hands.
“We survivors helped with the rescue, but we didn't have any tools, we're talking about a roof that weighs nearly 1,000 kilos, who is going to handle that?”, declared one of them.
Rodríguez noted that 90% of the passengers from flight 164 remained trapped and that no machinery had arrived at the site, partly due to the rugged terrain and the narrow road.
Unverified reports from Sunday, June 28 indicated that at least 60 people might still be alive in the upper levels and the basement of the hotel.
The Venezuelan government has not released any official list of victims, survivors, or missing persons from flight 164.
A government official told a relative of a missing person: "Stop asking, they were all dead."
Faces of Tragedy
Ángelo Mejía Meléndez, 27 years old, had promised his mother a family reunion that weekend.
"I’m fine. We’ll see each other soon. We had a family reunion this weekend and he was happy," was his last message. His mother did not know his whereabouts until four days later, when a survivor confirmed to her that he did not make it out alive.
Yamil Caldera, 32 years old, was recognized by his sister-in-law in the welcome video of Maldonado. He had been arrested along with his wife at a Walmart supermarket by ICE agents.
Obadelys Núñez was searching for her son Daniel Alejandro on social media.
“He is tall, overweight, white, has curly hair, has a beard, and has a tattoo on his left arm. He may have lost weight because he was detained by ICE for a month”, he clarified in an emotional video posted on X.
The context of mass deportations
Flight 164 was part of a steady flow: in 2025, the ICE Flight Monitor recorded 73 deportation flights to Venezuela, operated twice a week, which transported nearly 14,000 people.
The U.S. Supreme Court authorized in October 2025 the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for over 300,000 Venezuelans, leaving another 350,000 at risk when their protection expires in October 2026.
The toll of the double earthquake as of June 29 was 1,719 dead, 5,034 injured, and UN estimates of up to 57,287 missing. The 147 from flight 164 are mostly part of that unnamed figure.
"We just want to know where they are. If they are alive, where they are. And if not, we want them to tell us the truth," their families repeat while the regime remains silent.
Filed under: