Category Archives: Venezuela

Trump again asks supreme court to end protections for Venezuelans in US

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Justice department urges court to overturn ruling that Kristi Noem lacked authority to end TPS program

The Trump administration asked the US supreme court on Friday to intervene for the second time in a case involving its bid to end deportation protections the former president, Joe Biden, granted to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States.

The justice department filed an emergency application asking the justices to lift a federal judge’s ruling that the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, lacked the authority to end the protections for Venezuelans under the temporary protected status, or TPS, program.

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Judges rule against Trump administration on deporting Guatemalan children and Venezuelans

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Double defeat protects Venezuelans with temporary protected status and Guatemalan minors

The Trump administration has been handed a double defeat by judges in immigration cases, barring the executive branch from deporting a group of Guatemalan children and from slashing protections for many Venezuelans in the US.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the administration to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied immigrant children with active immigration cases while a legal challenge plays out.

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Venezuela starts days of military and ‘electronic warfare’ drills after US strikes on alleged drug boats

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Armed forces say ‘special naval militia’ involved in Caribbean deployment as defence minister cites ‘threatening, vulgar voice’ of Washington

Venezuela says it has begun three days of military exercises on its Caribbean island of La Orchila as tensions soar amid US military activity in the region.

Forces deployed for what Washington called an anti-drug operation have blown up at least two Venezuelan boats and a combined 14 people allegedly transporting drugs across the Caribbean this month – a move slammed by UN experts as “extrajudicial execution”.

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Venezuela says 11 killed in US boat strike were not gang members amid reports vessel was returning to shore

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Interior minister says ‘murder has been committed’ while US Congress demands justification for attack

None of the 11 people killed in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean last week were members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s interior minister has said, while US media reported the attack came after the vessel had turned around and was heading back to shore.

The administration of Donald Trump has said the boat was transporting illegal narcotics, but has provided little further information about the incident, even amid demands from members of the US Congress for a justification for the action.

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Boris Johnson was paid £240,000 after Maduro meeting, invoice shows

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Johnson’s office sent invoice to hedge fund manager, which was paid, weeks after meeting Venezuelan leader last year

From a private jet somewhere over the Caribbean Sea in February last year, Boris Johnson called his old political adversary David Cameron, then the foreign secretary, to notify him of a visit.

Johnson had taken a day out from a family holiday in the Dominican Republic for an unlikely meeting with the leftwing president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, a man whom Johnson, when in office, had likened to a “dictator of an evil regime”.

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Republican condemns Vance for ‘despicable’ comments on Venezuelan boat strike

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Rand Paul decries ‘thoughtless’ comment after vice-president defends strike against alleged drug traffickers

The Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers.

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Judge blocks ending of legal protections for 1m Venezuelans and Haitians in US

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Homeland security had tried to end temporary protected status granted by the Biden administration

A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means that 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire on 10 September have status to stay and work in the United States.

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Trump sends 10 stealth fighter planes to Puerto Rico amid war on Caribbean drug cartels

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Move comes after accusing Venezuela of buzzing US warship and a deadly US missile strike in Caribbean Sea

Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region, it was reported on Friday.

If follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, and comments by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Wednesday that such attacks “will happen again”.

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Top Obama-era Latin American expert warns of ‘disastrous’ US intervention in Venezuela

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US military buildup and attack on alleged narco boat spark fears of protracted guerrilla war in South America

The White House’s former top Latin America official has said he fears the US could stumble into a protracted guerrilla war in Venezuela after Donald Trump ordered a military strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing 11 alleged drug traffickers.

Tuesday’s controversial strike off the Venezuelan coast – which was reportedly carried out by an attack helicopter or Reaper drone – came after the US president ordered a major naval deployment to the region, ostensibly to combat South American drug traffickers.

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US conducts ‘kinetic strike’ against drug boat from Venezuela, killing 11, Trump says

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Trump says ‘we took it out’ referring to the operation in international waters, amid US-Caracas tensions

The US military has killed 11 drug traffickers from Venezuela during a “a kinetic strike” in the Caribbean Sea, the US president, Donald Trump, has claimed amid growing tensions between Washington and Caracas.

Trump trailed the announcement during an address at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the US had “just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out … a drug-carrying boat”.

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Court blocks Trump bid to end protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

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Appellate panel upholds lower court’s ruling as homeland security spokesperson attacks ‘activist’ judges

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Donald Trump’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have permission to live and work in the US, saying that plaintiffs are likely to win their claim that the president’s administration’s actions were unlawful.

A three-judge panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status for Venezuelans while TPS holders challenge actions by the Republican president’s administration in court.

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Trump defense official led thinktank that spread lies about Tren de Aragua

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Under Joseph Humire, the thinktank tracked alleged crimes by the Venezuelan gang in the US. A non-profit found multiple false entries

A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.

Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.

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Trump administration doubles reward for arrest of Venezuela’s president to $50m

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Nicolás Maduro was indicted in 2020 on federal charges of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine

The Trump administration is doubling to $50m a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narcotraffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said on Thursday in a video statement announcing the reward.

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Men freed from El Salvador mega-prison endured ‘state-sanctioned torture’, lawyers say

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Venezuelans back home under Maduro-Trump deal tell of isolation, beatings and dirty water – ‘a living nightmare’

Venezuelans that the Trump administration expelled to El Salvador’s most notorious megaprison endured “state-sanctioned torture”, lawyers for some of the men have said, as more stories emerge about the horrors they faced during capacity.

When José Manuel Ramos Bastidas – one of 252 Venezuelan men that the US sent to El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison – finally made it back home to El Tocuyo on Tuesday, the first thing he did was stretch his arms around his family.

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Venezuela to investigate alleged torture of its citizens in El Salvador jail

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Attorney general says detainees from Cecot prison returned under deal with US suffered a range of abuses

Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek Saab, said on Monday that his office would investigate El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, and two other officials for the alleged abuse of Venezuelans detained in the country.

More than 250 Venezuelans held in El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison returned to Venezuela on Friday under the terms of a prisoner exchange agreed with the US.

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Caracas releases 10 Americans as Venezuelans freed from El Salvador jail

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Scores of Venezuelans deported by US to El Salvador repatriated as Marco Rubio hails return of Americans

Venezuela released 10 jailed Americans on Friday in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The resolution represents a diplomatic achievement for the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, helps Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands El Salvador a swap that it had proposed months ago.

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Former Venezuelan intelligence chief pleads guilty to US drug charges

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Hugo Carvajal faces narco-terrorism and weapon charges amid accusations he helped lead a drug-trafficking group

A former top Venezuelan military intelligence chief has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to narco-terrorism conspiracy, drug-trafficking and weapons charges, piling further US pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, AKA “El Pollo” or “The Chicken”, was the director of Venezuela’s military intelligence under presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro. On Wednesday, days before his trial was set to begin, he pleaded guilty to four federal counts, related to accusations that he helped lead a drug-trafficking group within the Venezuelan government.

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Supreme court allows White House to revoke temporary protected status of many migrants

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Ruling reverses hold on Trump administration’s ending humanitarian parole of Venezuelan migrants and others

The US supreme court on Friday announced it would allow the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president’s drive to step up deportations.

The court put on hold Boston-based US district judge Indira Talwani’s order halting the administration’s move to end the immigration humanitarian “parole” protections granted to 532,000 people by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal from the country, while the detailed case plays out in lower courts.

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Guyana president decries Venezuela’s plan to hold elections ‘in our territory’

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Irfaan Ali tells Guardian of ‘grave’ implications of move to elect officials in Essequibo, recognised as part of Guyana

Venezuela’s decision to elect officials to administer a swathe of Guyanese territory constitutes “a full-frontal assault on Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” that “undermines regional peace”, the country’s president, Irfaan Ali, has warned.

Venezuelans will head to the polls on Sunday to chose regional governors and lawmakers, including officials who would supposedly govern Essequibo, a territory which is internationally recognised as part of Guyana. The area is largely jungle but also rich in oil, gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources.

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At least 50 migrants sent to El Salvador prison entered US legally, report finds

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Cato analysis goes against Trump administration’s claim that only undocumented people were deported to Cecot

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the United States legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute.

The report, published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

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