US deportation flights to Venezuela resume.

 

Deported Venezuelans arrive in  Maiquetia Venezuela. Fox News/Reuters.

US deportation flights to Venezuela have resumed for the first time in weeks. Fox News. The first flight of 199 illegal aliens arrived today, including members of the Tren De Aragua (TDA) gang. Venezuela had accepted four flights of deportations since Trump was sworn in, but stopped accepting them after Trump removed a Biden-era exception of sanctions that allowed Chevron to sell Venezuelan oil.  The deal came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened even more sanctions if Venezuela didn't accept their citizens. One flight of Venezuelans were also deported to El Salvador before a judge put an end to it. It is unclear what the terms of any deal between Venezuela and the United States are. 

My Comment:

Donald Trump campaigned on getting Tren De Aragua out of the country and this is another step in accomplishing that goal. Even though the Democrats are conducting lawfare against everything Trump is doing, he is able to at least able to get some of these deportations going again. 

It's unclear what the deal to get Venezuela to take back their people was. Generally, Trump uses the carrot and the stick approach to make a deal. We know what the stick was, Rubio was going to impose more sanctions on Venezuela to get them to take these fights back. It's possible that Venezuela took that threat seriously and allowed these flights again, but without confirmation from either side it's impossible to know. 

What was the carrot? Perhaps it was some other form of sanctions relief besides the oil waiver that Trump got rid of? I doubt that Trump would go back on that waiver but I guess that is possible too, but I think we would have heard of it by now. Again, without confirmation either way, it's impossible to know.

Regardless, I am glad that Venezuela is taking these people back. They emptied their prisons and kicked the folks out and they ended up here in the United States. Since many of them were TDA gangsters they brought a lot of crime and misery with them. I'm pretty down on immigration in general, but the one group of people that absolutely should not be allowed into the United States are members of a violent gang. 

I do think it's funny that it's easier for Trump to deal with a hostile foreign nation than it is with our courts system. Some stupid judge released a de facto veto of his plan to deport these people to El Salvador and Trump was able to bypass him by dealing with Venezuela instead. It's a good thing that he's still able to do this.