June 30, 2026
Construction worker Anderson Daniel Salcedo spent three months in US immigration detention before boarding a repatriation flight last Wednesday, arriving back in Venezuela just hours before twin earthquakes devastated his homeland.
A big football fan, the 22-year-old had lived in the US for more than three years, sending money home so his mother could build a house.
After landing at Maiquetia airport near the capital Caracas, Salcedo and more than 140 other returning migrants including seven children were sent to the nearby government-run Hotel Santuario La Llanada, on a hilltop overlooking the blue Caribbean, to await processing.
But soon after, Venezuela's strongest quakes in more than a century ripped through coastal La Guaira state, toppling the hotel and likely killing most of the deportees there, according to relatives.
