Trump’s Venezuela military escalation forces halt to deportation flights

A recent U.S. military escalation against Venezuela has led to the grounding of flights carrying illegal migrants from the United States back to the South American country, Venezuela's Foreign Ministry said, prompting criticism from opponents of the intervention.

President Donald Trump warned pilots on Saturday that airspace “over and around” Venezuela should be “completely closed” as his administration weighs potential strikes on targets in and around Caracas.

“Through these actions, the United States government has unilaterally suspended flights of Venezuelan migrants that were conducted regularly and weekly as part of the repatriation of Venezuelans under the Vuelta a la Patria (Repatriation Plan),” the department said in a statement.

Deportation flights were one of the few areas of cooperation between Washington and the US government. Nicolas Maduro. Venezuelan officials say nearly 14,000 citizens have been returned on twice-weekly charter flights in recent months.

VENEZUELA AGREES TO RESUME DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN RESPONSE TO PRESSURE FROM TRUMP

At the same time, the Trump administration continues to move forward with plans to end Temporary Protected Status for the estimated 600,000 Venezuelans living in the United States.

“Brilliant. Enough of this immigration nonsense. Let's get back to True MAGA – the neocon wars that are exacerbating and causing immigration crises. It’s damn time,” said Curt Mills, executive editor of The American Conservative, criticizing the move to military action.

So far, US strikes have targeted suspected drug traffickers operating in Caribbean Sea near Venezuela. But officials have signaled that operations could expand to ground targets as Washington increases pressure on Maduro to relinquish power.

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Dozens of American bombers have arrived in the region along with the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, underscoring the scale of the force buildup. With American bombers and Fords already stationed in the region, much of the world is waiting to see whether Trump will greenlight the next phase of the war. strikes on Venezuelan targets.

Trump confirmed that he recently spoke with Maduro by phone.

“I wouldn't say everything went well or badly. It was a phone call,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.

Trump gave Maduro an ultimatum to resign or face possible US military action. Maduro, The Miami Herald reported: sought global amnesty for himself, demanded to retain control of the military, and resisted immediate resignation from power.

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Moderate foreign policy analysts have sounded the alarm about intervention in Venezuela prompted by regime change, arguing that such a move could worsen migration patterns.

“The dynamics of escalation could provoke regional instability and hostility, with migration flows being one of the most predictable consequences,” said the report by Stimson Center analysts Evan Cooper and Alessandro Perry. “In the absence of a credible transition structure within Venezuela, external pressure is much more likely to deepen chaos by forcing more Venezuelans to flee than to lead to political change.”

Analysts in the libertarian foreign policy space have issued similar warnings.

Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, argues that “U.S. paramilitary pressure on Venezuela is far more likely to exacerbate instability than to lead to meaningful political change,” adding that history shows that “coercion in Venezuela produces unpredictable results and episodes of mass exodus.”

“Escalation without a stable political alternative inside Venezuela risks exacerbating the very migration pressure that Washington is trying to contain,” said George A. Lopez, a senior analyst at the Quincy Institute.