Venezuela resumes accepting US deportation flights after Trump closes airspace to country

Venezuela will continue accepting deportation flights from the U S at the request of President Donald Trump's administration the country informed Tuesday Trump threatened to declare the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety causing Venezuela to cancel the twice-weekly flights of transients from the U S on Saturday Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro communicated on Tuesday that at the request of the Trump administration those flights have now resumed Immigrants arrive regularly at the airport outside the capital of Caracas on flights operated by a U S cabinet contractor or Venezuela s state-owned airline More than immigrants have returned so far this year on the chartered flights the latest of which arrived Friday Venezuela previously had a longstanding agenda of not accepting deportation flights from the U S but Maduro's regime conceded under pressure from Trump earlier this year The deportation flights are one of the limited areas of cooperation between the U S and Venezuela as tension between the countries grows US ESCALATION WITH MADURO HALTS DEPORTATION FLIGHTS TO VENEZUELAU S strikes have targeted alleged narco-traffickers operating in the Caribbean near Venezuela Trump has signaled that operations could expand to land-based targets as Washington increases pressure on Maduro to relinquish power You know the land is much easier much easier And we know the routes they take Trump notified reporters during a Cabinet at the White House We know everything about them We know where they live We know where the bad ones live And we re going to start that very soon too VENEZUELA WILL FACE 'SEVERE AND ESCALATING SANCTIONS' IF IT DOESN'T ACCEPT ITS CITIZENS RUBIO SAYSDozens of U S bombers have deployed to the region alongside the world s largest aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R Ford underscoring the scale of the buildup With U S bombers and the Ford already positioned in the region much of the world is waiting to see whether Trump will green-light the next phase of strikes against Venezuelan targets Trump presented Maduro with an ultimatum during a fresh phone call demanding that he step down or face foreseen U S military action Maduro sought global amnesty for himself demanded to retain control of the military and resisted an immediate exit from power the Miami Herald stated Fox News' Morgan Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this record