ICE deports Venezuelan father from Texas to West Africa: A situation “I don’t wish on anybody”

A 35-year-old Venezuelan man who lived in Texas for years is now nearly 6,000 miles from his wife and 5-month-old American son after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him to West Africa.

Carlos Tellez Sanchez said he had never heard of Liberia until last week, when he found out he was being deported to the country that sits between Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire just hours before his flight took off. He said he spent the 15-hour flight across the Atlantic in handcuffs, and is now stranded in a remote area of the West African nation.

“I do not understand how a country that considers itself a global hero can act this way towards a human being,” he told CBS News in Spanish over a video call.

Tellez Sanchez said he now spends much of his time inside a hotel more than an hour away from Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, where he was placed alongside deportees from Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and other countries.

President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has intensified this summer, with ICE making a record number of arrests. Increasingly, some detainees are being sent to countries that are not their own and banished to far-flung places. Tellez Sanchez, who entered the U.S. illegally five years ago, is one of them.

The Venezuela native had been in the U.S. since 2021 after fleeing his home country. He worked at a car dealership in Dallas during the day and drove for Uber Eats at night to support his family. CBS News could not find any criminal charges or convictions for Tellez Sanchez, beyond civil immigration violations.

In December 2025, Tellez Sanchez was detained by ICE during what he expected would be a routine immigration appointment. He spent eight months in ICE detention centers before his deportation to Africa.

An immigration judge in 2021 granted Tellez Sanchez protection from being sent back to Venezuela, finding that he could be persecuted there. Legally, however, that order did not prevent ICE from deporting him to any other country.

Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has brokered so-called “third country” deportation agreements with dozens of nations around the world, including some notoriously dangerous places like South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Tellez Sanchez’ brother in Dallas, Juan Tellez, said he has no idea why Tellez Sanchez was sent to Liberia and that no one has given him an explanation. He described his brother as a good person and a hard worker who “doesn’t deserve what happened to him.”

In a statement to CBS News late Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tellez Sanchez had been deported from the U.S. once before crossing the southern border illegally in 2021. DHS said he was then released under the Biden administration until his arrest by ICE during a check-in appointment on Dec. 19.

DHS said Tellez Sanchez refused “several opportunities to be removed to Mexico,” adding that he was “removed to a safe third country on August 19,” presumably Liberia. DHS did not dispute that Tellez Sanchez lacks a criminal record.

“If an illegal alien chooses to file a claim in court refusing to go to their home country, we are required by law to find a safe and secure nation for them to go to,” DHS added in its statement. “If an illegal alien chooses to go home, we will give them a free flight home and a $3,000 check. The choice is theirs.”

In Liberia, Tellez Sanchez says he has no clear plan.

“It’s a very difficult situation,” he said, “one that I don’t wish on anybody.”