False Narrative: How Dare Trump Deport Venezuelans to Earthquake ‘Hell’
Todd Bensman
• July 13, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas—The close timing of two high-casualty earthquakes in Venezuela on June 24 and a June 25 Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to deport some 605,000 U.S.-based Venezuelans has given rise to a mounting pressure campaign arguing that President Donald Trump must, on moral grounds, let them stay.
Seizing on one tragic event during which 100 recently deported Venezuelans died in the quakes, pro-illegal immigration activists, human rights groups like the Venezuelan American Caucus, Democrat lawmakers, and midterm candidates are pushing a narrative that is bleeding into political campaigns as a real issue. The objective is to shame President Trump into reactivating the Temporary Protected Status that had shielded Venezuelans from deportation and that the Supreme Court allowed him to revoke. Their underlying argument goes pretty much like this:
“It is unthinkable to send children and families, who have committed no crimes, into a country plunged into chaos by natural disaster,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who is running for reelection, wrote in a Facebook post.
This voice-cracking cry to save Venezuelans from earthquake chaos is gaining traction, though the administration has resisted demands to restore TPS. But the argument is an easily debunked false dilemma based on inaccurate premises. The truth is that most of the deportable Venezuelans need not be shipped anywhere near the smoking rubble of shaken Caracas.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/07/13/trump-venezuelans-earthquake-hell/
