Lauren Villagran

the Trump administration was able to negotiate a new order in which Venezuela began accepting deportation flights regularly.

At one point, it was every Wednesday and Friday.

But Dana, the fact remains that the Trump administration has

wanted to deport millions of immigrants in this country.

And Venezuelans have in some cases been the poster face of that deportation effort.

But even with dozens of deportation flights that occurred last year, the Trump administration deported roughly 14,000 Venezuelans to Venezuela in 2025.

Now that's just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States now living without legal protections.

So the last known deportation flight from the United States to Venezuela occurred on December 10th.

U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells me, quote, flights have not paused.

But one organization that closely tracks ICE deportation flights tells USA Today that there have been no additional deportation flights since that date.

Yeah, so it's early days still and it's unclear whether the fact that deportation flights have not been landing regularly in the past week or so is an indication of what's to come.

Certainly, Maduro's ouster is

fresh still.

We know that the administration has wanted to create conditions in which Venezuelans could return to their home country.

But Venezuelans I've spoken with in the diaspora in the United States, as hopeful as some may be,

do believe that conditions on the ground in these early days are still very complicated.

You have a regime in place that is essentially the same one that was built up around Maduro.

You have seen repression in the streets and the sort of celebrations and celebratory mood that you saw in Venezuelan communities in the United States has not materialized in Venezuela, given the repression.

New Yorka and her husband spoke with our colleague Eduardo Cuevas about their work aiding Venezuelan immigrants who have arrived in New York.