MIAMI (AP) — Pedro Naranjo idolized his father growing up and followed him into the Venezuelan air force to fly helicopters. So deep was their bond that when the older Naranjo feared being jailed for plotting against Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, father and son fled to the United States together.
Now the two have been separated by an overstretched U.S. immigration system that has left the retired Gen. Pedro Naranjo in legal limbo in the U.S. His loyal son, a Venezuelan air force lieutenant, sits in a Venezuelan military prison after he was deported by the Biden administration as part of an attempt to discourage asylum-seekers from the turbulent South American country.
“We never had a plan B,” the older Naranjo said in a phone interview from Houston. He was released after 10 days in U.S. custody and is now awaiting the outcome of his own asylum request. “It never crossed our mind that the U.S., as an ally of the Venezuelan opposition and democracies over the world, a defender of human rights and freedom, would do what it did to my son.”
The Venezuelan diaspora is one of the most vexing migration challenges that awaits Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas when they arrive in Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss unprecedented arrivals at the U.S. border with President Andres Manuel López Obrador.
Last year, Mexico ended visa-free travel for Venezuelans, which had been a ticket to those seeking asylum in the United States. Once arriving at a Mexican border city, Venezuelans could walk across the border in broad daylight and surrender to U.S. agents, avoiding the dangers of traversing Mexico and other countries over land.
Restricting flights to Mexico encouraged walking through the perilous Darién Gap. More than a half-million migrants, predominantly Venezuelan, have traversed the jungle at the border of Colombia and Panama this year.
The resumption for the first time in years of U.S. deportation flights to Venezuela — 11 since October, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data — have failed to stem the surge. Venezuelans were arrested more than 85,000 times crossing the border illegally in October and November, the second-highest nationality after Mexicans.
Little is known about how those deported fare once they are returned home. However, critics and members of south Florida's close-knit community of Venezuelan exiles have blasted the Biden administration for overlooking the grave dangers faced by deportees like Naranjo.
Last week, a group calling itself Independent Venezuelan American Citizens joined Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Jimenez to denounce the younger Naranjo's deportation and subsequent arrest at the hands of Maduro. It said it sent a request to the White House on Dec. 12 seeking to block the deportation but received no response. On Dec. 14, after failing to reverse a deportation order by an asylum officer, the younger Naranjo was deported, according to his father.
Ernesto Ackerman, a member of the group, said the deportation was akin to sending a U.S. drug agent into the hands of a drug cartel.
“It’s like taking a DEA agent and sending him to Chapo Guzmán,” Ackerman said, referring to the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. “I don’t see any difference.”
Naranjo's deportation comes against the backdrop of U.S. attempts to improve relations with Caracas after the Trump administration's “maximum pressure” campaign failed to topple Maduro. In November, the White House eased oil sanctions on the OPEC nation to support fledgling negotiations between Maduro and his opponents over guarantees for next year's presidential elections. And last week, Biden announced a presidential pardon releasing from prison of a key Maduro ally held for more than three years on U.S. money-laundering charges.