President Donald Trump’s deputies flew 177 Venezuelan migrants from Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay to Honduras on Thursday.
The Venezuelan migrants were then flown from Honduras to Caracas, Venezuela, so putting 3,078 miles between them and ordinary Americans living in the Democratic-run sanctuary city of Aurora, Colo.
But the success is just a down payment on a huge task ahead. President Joe Biden’s pro-migration deputies welcomed roughly 600,000 Venezuelan illegal migrants into Americans’ workplaces and homes.
Venezuelan migrants deported from U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela on February 20, 2025. (PEDRO MATTEY/AFP via Getty)
Trump is facing pressure from employers and real-estate investors to keep most of the Venezuelan migrants. The migrants deported on Thursday, however, had been ordered home by immigration courts.
The deportation to Honduras marks another successful use of friendly countries as a drop-off location for migrants from countries that do not want to cooperate with the United States. Trump’s deputies have made deals with Panama and Guatemala to serve as drop-off sites.
The sudden exit of the Guantanamo migrants disappointed many pro-migration advocates who were hoping to file lawsuits that would prevent the migrant repatriations.
The New York Times reported:
The transfers cleared out the migrants at a time when the operation has raised numerous questions about whether the government had legitimate legal authority to take people from ICE facilities in the United States to the base in Cuba for continued detention. Immigrant rights’ lawyers have gone to court seeking access to the migrants, and rights groups have been expected to file a broader challenge to the Trump administration’s policy.
“It’s a way to avoid litigation from getting traction,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor who worked as a lawyer in the State Department during the Obama administration, has long been involved in litigation over detainees at Guantánamo. He added, “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
Venezuela’s dictator said the returning migrants would grow their poor nation’s economy, according to the New York Times report. “In Venezuela, we give them a welcome as a productive force, with a loving hug,” Nicolás Maduro.
Politicians in Colombia and Jamaica are also urging their migrants to return home.
The exit of the illegal migrants will improve the U.S. economy because it will nudge up Americans’ wages, reduce their housing costs, redirect government spending to poor Americans, pressure companies to invest in workplace productivity technology, and eventually, boost trade with poor countries.
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