Venezuela is one of the few countries on this page against which an individual can complain to the Committee against Torture. It accepted that procedure in 1994. The Committee has since found torture and ill-treatment inflicted on people arrested during protests. A United States immigration judge has granted withholding of removal to Venezuela under the Convention against Torture.
Why this page exists
Venezuela is one of the countries people in the register hold protection against. It has no arrangement with the United States to receive people removed from elsewhere.
Venezuela is also listed in the Third-Country Removals project, on The Countries page, flagged as a destination country where torture is documented.
What Venezuela has accepted
The depositary record shows signature on 15 February 1985 and ratification on 29 July 1991. On 26 April 1994 Venezuela declared that it “recognizes the competence of the Committee against Torture as provided for under articles 21 and 22 of the Convention.”
Article 22 is the one that matters to a person. It means an individual subject to Venezuelan jurisdiction may take a complaint to the Committee. Of the eleven countries in this project, only Venezuela and Russia have opened that route.
What the Committee against Torture found
The Committee adopted concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports on 19 November 2014. Under the heading on torture and ill-treatment of persons arrested during protests, at paragraph 10, it recorded:
“The Committee is alarmed by consistent reports of acts of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on persons arrested during the demonstrations that took place from February to July 2014.”
That is the most recent examination. More than a decade has passed without another.
Venezuelans sent to third countries
Human Rights First counts 2,043 cases between January 1998 and 31 August 2026 in which Venezuelan nationals were granted withholding of removal (1,607) or protection under the Convention against Torture (436), the highest figure for any country in this project. Source: Human Rights First, 9 October 2026, p. 8
Most Venezuelans sent to a third country have been sent to Mexico. Third Country Deportation Watch, from figures Mexico’s National Migration Institute released on request, records 3,568 Venezuelans among the non-Mexican nationals Mexico received from the United States between 20 January and 31 December 2025, and 1,966 between January and 15 June 2026. Human Rights First reports that Cubans and Venezuelans sent there “are dumped on the streets without immigration documentation”, and that ICE “forcibly deported to Mexico a Venezuelan journalist granted CAT deferral even though he expressed fear of being sent to Mexico”; he said: “I said I was afraid to go to Mexico, and they never gave me a fear interview.” Sources: Third Country Deportation Watch, Mexico · Human Rights First, 9 October 2026, pp. 17 and 24
Venezuelans have also been sent further. Third Country Deportation Watch records 66 Venezuelans among about 121 people transferred to Ecuador under its agreement with the United States through June 2026, nationals of Venezuela among 14 people sent to Liberia on 20 August 2026, and nationals of Venezuela among the 78 people sent to the Central African Republic on 23 October 2026. Confidencial counts six Venezuelans among 116 foreign nationals the United States deported to Nicaragua between January 2025 and June 2026. Sources: Third Country Deportation Watch, Ecuador · Third Country Deportation Watch, Liberia · Third Country Deportation Watch, Central African Republic · Confidencial, 29 June 2026
Since 27 October 2026 Third Country Deportation Watch has recorded that 44 Venezuelans “have also had claims pretermitted and been ordered removed to Honduras pursuant to the ACA, though they are excluded in the implementation plan”, the ACA being the asylum cooperative agreement with Honduras; and its Ecuador page records 4,917 Venezuelans, more than any other nationality it lists, among the people whose asylum cases were pretermitted for removal to Ecuador. Human Rights First describes the removal of Venezuelans to Venezuela “via Honduras” as one of its “layover-transfer removal flights”, which Third Country Deportation Watch does not count as transfers to a third country. Sources: Third Country Deportation Watch, Honduras · Third Country Deportation Watch, Ecuador · Human Rights First, ICE Flight Monitor, September 2026 report · Third Country Deportation Watch, overview
Venezuela in a chain toward Iran
Venezuela has received its own nationals moved on from a third country: all 252 Venezuelan men held at the CECOT prison in El Salvador were sent to Venezuela on 18 July 2025. It has also acted as a link in a chain toward another country. An Iranian man holding United States withholding of removal to Iran, flown by ICE to Nicaragua on 16 October 2025 and sent on by Nicaraguan officers, states in a sworn declaration that in Caracas Venezuelan immigration officials pulled him out of the passport line and “put me on a Turkish Airlines flight to Tehran, Iran, with transit in Istanbul, Turkey.” He escaped return by leaving the airport in Istanbul. The full account is set out in The Record. Sources: El Salvador guide · Declaration, D.V.D. v. DHS, D. Mass., ECF 233-18, Coalition copy (PDF)
Venezuela is also listed in States Engaging in Refoulement for this conduct.
What the register records
Rea-Hernandez v. Bondi, Western District of Washington, 6 February 2026. A Venezuelan man granted withholding of removal to Venezuela under the Convention against Torture was detained eleven months while Immigration and Customs Enforcement approached twenty-four countries for acceptance. Five replied. All five refused.
The court ordered his release, holding there was no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, and enjoined his removal to any third country without meaningful notice and an opportunity to be heard. The entry is in the register of court decisions.
Sources
Treaty status and the text of the 1994 declaration: United Nations Treaty Collection, depositary record for the Convention against Torture, chapter IV-9, read 14 September 2026.
Committee against Torture, concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, CAT/C/VEN/CO/3-4, adopted 19 November 2014: docs.un.org.
Venezuelans sent to third countries: Human Rights First, In the Middle of the Night, They Come and Get You, 9 October 2026, pages 8, 17 and 24, and ICE Flight Monitor, September 2026 report; Third Country Deportation Watch, Mexico, Ecuador, Liberia, Central African Republic, Honduras and overview, read 5 November 2026; Confidencial, 29 June 2026.