By Online Peoples News | May 5, 2025
Kathmandu, Nepal — In a chilling display of neo-imperialist aggression, the United States under President Donald Trump has forcibly deported more than 3,400 Venezuelans since 2021, many of them victims of economic hardship manufactured by years of U.S.-led sanctions and political subversion against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
On Friday, May 2, another group of 172 Venezuelan citizens landed safely in Caracas, welcomed by a state-sponsored repatriation effort known as the Return to the Homeland program. Launched in 2023 by the government of President Nicolás Maduro, the initiative is a dignified response to the mass deportations that have become a hallmark of Washington’s xenophobic and destabilizing foreign policy.
These deportations are not isolated administrative acts—they are an extension of the U.S. imperialist project that seeks to punish independent and socialist nations who resist the diktats of global capital. Venezuela, like Cuba and the former Soviet-aligned states, continues to pay the price for choosing sovereignty, socialism, and anti-colonial development over the exploitative model pushed by the United States.
Despite enormous internal and external challenges, the Venezuelan people, with the support of their revolutionary government, are standing tall. Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, hailed the arrival of returning citizens as “an extraordinary act of solidarity and national unity,” emphasizing the government’s commitment to reintegration, employment, and familial reunification.
The Trump administration has sought to label many of the deportees as criminals—members of the so-called Tren de Aragua gang. Yet, no evidence has been provided. Worse, over 250 Venezuelans were illegally detained and transferred to the notorious U.S.-backed Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. Such actions mirror the darkest days of imperial interventions in Latin America, from Pinochet’s Chile to the U.S.-supported death squads of the 1980s.
Fortunately, U.S. judicial resistance has emerged. Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr.—ironically appointed by Trump himself—recently ruled that the administration’s use of the archaic Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans was unconstitutional. The ruling reinstated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 600,000 Venezuelans, providing a temporary lifeline for thousands of workers and families.
However, the Trump camp remains defiant. His Vice President, JD Vance, shamelessly declared that deportation is “an essential function” of the presidency, revealing the fascistic core of the administration’s immigration policy.
Meanwhile, in a rare moment of détente, Washington and Caracas recently struck a fragile agreement on repatriation flights. But even this agreement was nearly derailed when the U.S. revoked Chevron’s license to operate in Venezuela—further evidence of Washington’s tendency to mix corporate interests with geopolitical coercion.
The events unfolding between the U.S. and Venezuela are not merely a bilateral matter—they are a reflection of the ongoing global class struggle. As Nepal watches from the Global South, we must recognize that the criminalization of migration, the weaponization of deportation, and the economic strangulation of sovereign states are all tools of imperial control.
In the spirit of internationalism, the working people of Nepal stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and all nations fighting for dignity, independence, and socialism.
Online Peoples News is committed to amplifying anti-imperialist voices and standing with the oppressed across the globe. The struggle of the Venezuelan people is the struggle of all working-class and colonized peoples.