MIAMI (AP) — More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.
A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday's earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.
Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.
“We walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried … there was no communication,” Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.
“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” said Portillo. “I am traumatized,” she said after a pause, weeping.
The Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed.
Portillo was caught up in the Trump administration's drive for mass deportations. In May, ICE Flight Monitor tracked 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile and the Ivory Coast.
The U.S. ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela in May, operating three days a week, according to ICE Flight Monitor. Deportation flights to Venezuela resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause.
Portillo said the government took them to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they underwent medical exams and got identification documents. They were told they would go home the next day.
Portillo was staying in a second floor room with 16 other women. She stepped onto a balcony to look at the sea and saw that the sky was black; it was very hot. She returned to the room, laid on a bed, and began to feel herself being shaken.
“I started hearing ‘papa, papa papapa,’, and I saw the women next to me start to fall,” she said, describing the sounds from the earthquake. “They were all screaming for help.”
And almost immediately, the second earthquake.
"I fall and end up buried and covered by a beam, but the shaking shifted everything where I was buried and I was able to get out,” said Portillo, who has bruises all over her body.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for information from the AP.
A video from the Venezuelan government posted on social media showed images of the deportees being received by Venezuelan authorities upon their arrival at the Caracas airport on Wednesday.
Jenny Rodriguez, 24, told the Telemundo network that she was on the flight and taken to the hotel.
“I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help”, she said. “Thanks to God — and to him — I was able to get out of there.”
Liliana Rojas told Telemundo that she has been trying to locate her 33-year-old partner. The detention center where he was held in El Paso, Texas, says only told that he was deported.
“No one is giving an answer about anything,” Rojas said.
Portillo, who crossed the U.S. border with Mexico in November 2021 and said had an pending asylum claim, couldn't remember her children's phone number. She called her husband in the United States.
“I said to him, ‘Cesar, I’m alive. Help me.’ And my husband kept saying, ‘It can’t be,’” she said. “‘I’m alive, I made it out of the rubble, I’m alive,’ I told him.”
Her husband called their children, who picked her up and were able to reunite with their mother the following night.
“I was born that day; on the 24th, I was born again,” said Portillo, who lived in South Florida for more than four years.
This version corrects the headline to say the hotel was in La Guaira.
Men searching for survivors stand atop a mountain of rubble three days after twin earthquakes struck, in La Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man sits amid earthquake rubble in La Guaira, Venezuela, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A helicopter takes off from a U.S. Navy ship docked at the seaport to support earthquake relief efforts in La Guaira, Venezuela, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
NBA free agency in 2010: Everyone waited for LeBron James to make a decision.
NBA free agency in 2026: Everyone is waiting again for James to make a decision.
James was the biggest domino to fall in the NBA's offseason player movement period 16 years ago when he decided to join Miami, and he may be the biggest domino to fall — at least in free agency — this summer as well. Free agency opens in the NBA on Tuesday evening, with James' future atop the list of most intriguing storylines that will be solved over the coming days and weeks.
The one thing that seems clear when it comes to James: It seems like retirement isn't happening yet, which would mean the NBA's career leader in points scored, minutes played and games played coming back for a record-extending 24th season and potentially — when including playoff contests — appearing in his 2,000th game.
The question is where.
His options would figure to include staying with the Los Angeles Lakers, returning to Miami or Cleveland (both would have interest for obvious reasons) or even thinking about moving elsewhere like Golden State and teaming up with longtime friends — and rivals, considering they've gone head to head in the NBA Finals on four occasions — Stephen Curry and Draymond Green to chase one more title.
Green — who is not expected to leave Golden State — on Monday declined his $27.6 million option for next season, doing so to give the Warriors more maneuverability to add players in the coming days, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because that detail was not revealed publicly by the team, and it raises the possibility that the Warriors might now have more of a selling point to pitch to James.
“When the time comes, you guys will know what I decide to do,” James said when the Lakers were eliminated this spring by Oklahoma City in a 4-0 sweep.
The time is coming.
The window when teams can begin officially talking with free agents — other than the ones on their own team, those talks could begin when the NBA Finals ended — opens at 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and deals could be flying not long afterward.
In most cases, any new deals cannot be executed until at least the end of the NBA's offseason moratorium on July 6.
“This period we’re in right now, kind of from mid-May to mid-July, it’s a two-month sprint through the draft, combine, free agency, Summer League, all that,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said earlier this month. “We’re super busy right now. But it’s a fun time of year. This is where we get to make decisions, shape the roster, do all that stuff.”
The NBA finalists — champion New York and runner-up San Antonio — both will have moves to make in the coming days, though they are expected to keep their cores largely intact. The Knicks were keeping Landry Shamet on a four-year deal, a person with knowledge of the details said Monday. And the Spurs announced Monday that sharpshooter Julian Champagnie, who came up big time and time again for San Antonio in the playoffs, signed a new deal with the club; a person with knowledge of the terms told AP it was a three-year deal for up to $45 million.
Plenty of other decisions and roster-shaping already has happened around the league, either by trades (such as the Giannis Antetokounmpo blockbuster by Miami last week or the Ja Morant deal between Memphis and Portland that went down Monday) or teams re-signing or extending their own players (such as Trae Young's $212 million deal with Washington and Austin Reaves' $185 million deal with the Lakers).
Sacramento traded former lottery pick Devin Carter and a future second-round pick to Atlanta in a salary dump, and Kings guard Zach LaVine picked up his $49 million player option, a person familiar with those moves said on condition of anonymity because they haven’t been finalized.
Miami will land Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis in a trade that sends Tyler Herro, other players and draft capital to Milwaukee, but that won't be finalized until that moratorium date passes. But in the interim, the Heat will be looking to add shooters — Tim Hardaway Jr., whose father's number is retired in Miami, and longtime Antetokounmpo favorite Khris Middleton make a lot of sense.
The Heat will be keeping Andrew Wiggins, who on Monday exercised his $30 million option for this coming season and, according to a person familiar with the talks between the sides, has agreed in principle on a $34 million deal for the following two seasons — with 2028-29 at his option.
More trades could be coming, with a person familiar with the negotiations confirming to the AP that Toronto has spoken with the Los Angeles Clippers on the possibility of Kawhi Leonard — who led the Raptors to the 2019 NBA title — returning to Ontario next season. And Boston is still believed to be holding talks about the possibility of trading 2024 NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown, who was the centerpiece of the Celtics' ultimately futile offer to land Antetokounmpo in trade discussions with Milwaukee.
“Nobody has won more combined regular-season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago,” Brown posted on social media over the weekend. He's right: The Celtics have won 523 games with Brown in the lineup, including playoff contests, which is six more than Denver has won with Nikola Jokic over that span.
AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in New York and AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow in San Francisco contributed to this report.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba
FILE - Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown plays during Game 6 in a first-round NBA basketball playoff series Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum,File)
FILE - Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James salutes public address announcer Lawrence Tanter prior to an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets Saturday, March 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill,File)
