MIAMI– Pedro Naranjo idolized his father growing up and followed him into the Venezuelan Air Force to fly helicopters. Their bond was so deep that when the elder Naranjo feared being imprisoned for conspiring against the socialist government of Nicolás Maduro, father and son fled together to the United States.
Now the two are separated by an overburdened US immigration system that has left retired general Pedro Naranjo in legal limbo in the US. His loyal son, a Venezuelan Air Force lieutenant, is in a Venezuelan military prison after being deported by the Biden. government as part of an effort to discourage asylum seekers from the turbulent South American country.
“We never had a plan B,” the elder Naranjo said in a telephone interview from Houston. He was released after ten days in US custody and is now awaiting the outcome of his own asylum request. “It never occurred to us that the United States, as an ally of the Venezuelan opposition and democracies around the world, as a defender of human rights and freedom, would do what they did to my son.”
The Venezuelan diaspora is one of the most vexing migration challenges that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will face when they arrive in Mexico City on Wednesday to join President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in marking unprecedented arrivals at the U.S. border to discuss.
Last year, Mexico ended visa-free travel for Venezuelans, which had been a ticket for asylum seekers in the United States. Once they arrived at a Mexican border town, Venezuelans could cross the border in broad daylight and surrender to U.S. agents, avoiding the dangers of crossing Mexico and other countries by land.
Restricting flights to Mexico encouraged walking through the dangerous Darién Gap. More than half a million migrants, mainly Venezuelans, have crossed the jungle on the border of Colombia and Panama this year.
The resumption of U.S. deportation flights to Venezuela for the first time in years — 10 since October, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data — has failed to stem the tide. 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 deportees fare once they return home. However, critics and members of South Florida's tight-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 by Maduro. It said it sent a request to the White House on December 12 to block the deportation but received no response. On December 14, the younger Naranjo was deported after failing to overturn an asylum official's deportation order, 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 Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. “I do not see any difference.”
Naranjo's deportation comes against the backdrop of US efforts 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 country to support nascent negotiations between Maduro and his opponents over guarantees for next year's presidential elections. And last week, Biden announced a presidential pardon for the release from prison of a key Maduro ally held for more than three years on money laundering charges in the US.
Neither the White House nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement commented on the Naranjos' situation.
The father-son saga began in 2018, when General Naranjo was arrested along with a handful of other officers for allegedly plotting to assassinate Maduro, sow chaos and disrupt Venezuela's presidential elections that year. Naranjo denies his involvement in a barracks uprising dubbed “Operation Armageddon” by Maduro, but he was nevertheless court-martialed along with other alleged conspirators on charges including rebellion and treason.
In 2021, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Naranjo was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in prison. Under international pressure from Maduro's opponents, including the head of the Organization of American States, he was allowed to serve his sentence at home.
When the government decided to extend the sentences of his co-defendants, he feared that the house arrest would be reversed and he would be thrown back into prison. He decided to flee in late 2022 and his son, who he says never conspired against Maduro's government, joined him to ensure he arrived safely.
“The only crime he committed was being a good son,” said Maria Elena Machado, who has seen her son in prison twice since his return.
The two crossed the border for the first time into Colombia, where more than four million Venezuelans have left their homes since 2016. But now that a left-wing ally of Maduro is in power and Marxist rebels still lurk in the countryside, the two feel unsafe. they decided to make the dangerous journey through the Darién to the US. On October 4, they crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas, and surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol.
By crossing illegally from Mexico, the Naranjos were exposed to stricter standards for passing initial asylum screenings.
A rule introduced in May applies the higher standard to anyone who crosses the border illegally after passing through another country, such as Mexico, without seeking protection there. Migrants should also take advantage of one of the Biden administration's new legal avenues to obtain asylum, such as a new mobile app for appointments at official border crossings.
Illegal crossings of various nationalities, including Venezuelans, decreased after the rule was introduced, but the lull was short-lived.
It is not clear why Naranjo's asylum request was rejected. His father said he appealed to a federal immigration judge in Pearsall, Texas, the asylum official's initial determination that he would not face retaliation if he returned to Venezuela, but lost.
According to his father, the younger Naranjo had no lawyer throughout the proceedings. Asylum seekers have the right to call lawyers before screening job interviews, but many lawyers complain that detainees receive little attention, often at odd hours, and cannot find help.
Venezuelans who pass the screening do relatively well before immigration judges. According to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, their asylum rate was 72% in the budget year ending September 30, compared to 52% for all nationalities.
Upon his arrival in Venezuela, the younger Naranjo was arrested again on charges of desertion. He is now being held in the military prison outside Caracas, along with several government opponents.
Meanwhile, migration experts warn that other Venezuelans who deserve asylum could face the same fate.
“This is not a shocker,” said Julio Henriquez, a Venezuelan-born immigration lawyer in Boston. “It could happen at any time.”
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Spagat reported from San Diego.