Venezuelans in the US rush to send aid to earthquake victims, but Caracas airport is closed

DORAL, Fla. (AP) — Venezuelans in the U.S. rushed to organize donation drives Thursday after devastating earthquakes that officials say killed at least 188 people and injured hundreds more in their home country. The United States government and other countries also pledged aid.

Oscar Torres and thousands of others spent the last 24 hours keeping up with a flurry of messages posted to a WhatsApp group that connects people in Venezuela with their families. He lives in Doral, Florida, a city outside Miami that's home to the largest Venezuelan population in the U.S.

“Already this morning, I was looking at the group in Doral and everybody’s pitching in — money, medicine, water. First, necessity items,” said Torres, a sales manager who moved to the U.S. from Venezuela in 1995. “They’re talking about making the first shipment ASA

In Washington, the Trump administration said it’s sending $150 million to support relief efforts by aid groups and the United Nations, according to a U.S. State Department news release.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government was mobilizing a disaster response team to Venezuela that includes two urban search and rescue teams from fire departments in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles. The U.S. military, which seized Venezuela's then-president Nicolas Maduro in a surprise January drug arrest, will provide aircraft to help assess damage, assist searches and deliver aid.

Other countries including Mexico and Colombia also promised assistance.

The 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes Wednesday night caused severe damage to the country’s main airport in the capital of Caracas, which could hamper efforts to get aid into the country quickly. The quakes were among the strongest in Venezuela in more than a century.

In photos of the aftermath, injured children, animals and civilians covered in dust and blood were pulled out of concrete rubble.

In addition to those killed and injured, thousands more were missing — leaving many families members in the U.S. scrambling for updates. More than 770,000 Venezuelans live in the U.S., with large communities settling in Texas and Utah, in addition to Florida.

In the Houston area, home to a large Venezuelan community, residents used community Facebook groups and other social media to spread the word about local donation sites. First aid and medical supplies such as gauze, bandages, antiseptics, disposable gloves, face masks, syringes, thermometers and blood pressure monitors all were in demand.

Local resident Daniel Arenas translated a Spanish-language post into English and shared it Thursday on his LinkedIn page hoping people across Houston would step up and donate.

“I came to this country 10 years ago, built a life here, but my heart is still in Venezuela,” Arenas said. “It’s devastating what’s happening over there. They don’t have the resources to handle this.”

Arenas, a maritime industry consultant, said that his wife is concerned about her aunt, who lives in a high-rise apartment in Caracas and sent a distraught message on WhatsApp after the quakes hit.

“She was crying and screaming and saying she was in pain but not sure from where,” Arenas said. “She said she lost everything. She was desperate.”

Arenas said his wife was later able to reach her aunt.

Many of the sites mobilizing donations are in Katy, a suburb about 30 miles (48 km) west of downtown Houston that’s earned the nickname “Katyzuela” because of its high concentration of Venezuelans.

Luis Angarita, who lives in Katy, said his younger sister and family were forced to sleep outside in a park after their home was damaged in the mountain community of Caribia, some 6 miles (10 kilometers) northwest of Caracas.

Angarita’s sister told him in a WhatsApp message that she’s trying to get everyone to their father’s home on the other side of the capital. But no taxis or buses are running and roads leading out of their mountain community are closed.

“Thank God they’re safe,” Angarita said in Spanish. “There are many displaced people and others are stuck in their homes, unable to leave. They need help.”

In Florida, workers for the Doral-based aid group Global Empowerment Mission on Thursday packed medical supplies, toiletries, cases of bottled water and nonperishable foods to be sent to Venezuela.

Despite damage to airports and roads, the aid group doesn’t foresee delays getting supplies into Venezuela, said Billy Richardson, the group’s U.S. logistics director.

“Sometimes it means using other airports, other means of transport, or even coming into other countries,” Richardson said by email.

Torres planned to contribute money for relief efforts. He still has uncles and cousins who live in Caracas and Valencia, another hard-hit Venezuelan city. He said some of them were injured as they fled buildings during the quakes.

“Their homes are destroyed and a few buildings have collapsed,” Torres said. “Thankfully, I don’t know anyone who passed away.”

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Marcelo reported from New York.

People take goods from damaged stores a day after earthquakes and aftershocks struck Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Jonathan Lanza)

Neighbors comfort Gabriela Rojas, center, as she mourns in front of her damaged home, where two of her children died during earthquakes that struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026.. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

Residents help to remove rubble from a collapsed building in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026, a day after successive powerful earthquakes struck the country. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Patients lie outside a hospital evacuated after it was damaged in an earthquake in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

People sleep in the streets a day after an earthquake and several aftershocks struck Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Residents walk among the rubble of building damaged in earthquakes the previous day in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

Volunteers are seen packaging supplies, Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Cody Jackson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.

The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.

It marked another victory at the high court for Republican President Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on immigration. Though the conservative-dominated court has put the brakes on some of Trump’s immigration policies, it handed him a second win Thursday in a decision clearing the way for the revival of a policy restricting immigrants seeking asylum.

The court’s conservative majority found that immigration authorities have sole authority over the program, and the law doesn't allow judges to intervene.

The majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito also brushed aside arguments that Trump's derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump's comments “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.” Her dissent pointed out that Trump had said Haitians in the U.S. “probably have AIDS,” and he also amplified false rumors during the 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating dogs and cats.

Federal authorities deny that prejudice played a role, and argued that TPS was supposed to be temporary but has lasted over a decade in some cases.

James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded Thursday’s ruling. He said the program had become “de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense.”

In a Fox News interview Thursday, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called it “a victory 10 years in the making," saying it allows Haitian migrants to “finally” be removed.

Lawyers said Haitian immigrants would be in danger if they are sent back. “Simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths,” Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber said.

They urged the Senate to approve an extension of deportation protections for Haitians that passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote in April.

“Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into work, folks are trying to commute, and it’s like the Supreme Court just put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo,” said Viles Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.

People with TPS are also a key part of the workforce in long-term care facilities, an industry group said. “This would be a dreadful loss for all seniors in our community,” said Rita Siebenaler, a resident at Goodwin Living, a senior living community in Virginia.

The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Homeland Security has moved to end the protections, including some that had been in place for more than a decade, for people from 13 countries.

Immigration lawyers said the terminations were made through an improperly fast process, even though countries such as Haiti and Syria remain dangerous. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were later found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the ruling “a devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked, and contributed to this country for years — only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.”

The United States first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.

Syrians were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.

“Today, many of our community members, they feel lost,” Farrah AlKhorfan of Immigrants Act Now said about Syrian immigrants losing TPS protections. “They are trying to understand … what this decision means for them and how it will be implemented and how much time they will have to prepare for what comes next.”

The program was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.

Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen, June 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

FILE - Linda Joseph holds a candle during a vigil at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary immigration status, or TPS, for Haitians, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in North Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)