(DILLEY, TEXAS) – DHS rejected Rep. Joaquin Castro’s allegation that ICE tried to deport families from the Dilley Immigration Processing Center to Venezuela after the June 24 earthquakes, calling the claim “FALSE” and saying a deportation flight safely reached Venezuela that day.

The department said a flight carrying 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and 7 children, landed in Caracas at 10:22 a.m. local time on June 24. DHS said no other deportation flight was scheduled that day.

Castro described a different episode. He said families held at Dilley were awakened overnight, transferred to Arizona, and believed they were being sent to Venezuela before authorities returned them to Texas.

The dispute turns on two separate events that unfolded around the same date. One involved the Caracas flight that arrived before the quakes; the other involved the alleged overnight movement of families from the South Texas detention center.

Later on June 24, earthquakes struck Venezuela with reported magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5. Reports from Venezuela described heavy damage and a missing-person search involving some of the deportees.

Castro tied those events together in a statement that accused the administration of putting families at risk. “Last week, 146 men, women, and children were deported back home to Venezuela hours before the earthquakes—many are suspected to have been killed,” he wrote.

DHS pushed back in categorical terms. The department said the claim that ICE tried to deport families to Venezuela after the earthquakes was “FALSE.”

It also set out a narrower legal position on custody and responsibility. “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them,” DHS said.

That response addressed the deportation flight and what happened after arrival in Venezuela. Castro’s allegation, however, focused on what he said occurred inside the U.S. system after the quakes, when families at Dilley believed they were being moved toward deportation and were instead sent back to Texas.

The timing sits at the center of the clash. DHS said the only June 24 flight to Venezuela had already landed in Caracas hours before the earthquakes later that day, while Castro framed the overnight transfer from Dilley as evidence that ICE still tried to send families out after the disaster.

No other flight from June 24 is at issue in DHS’s account. The department said no additional deportation flights were scheduled, a point it used to reject Castro’s description of the overnight transfer as an attempted removal to Venezuela.

The numbers on the completed flight were specific. DHS said the plane carried 146 Venezuelans, among them 19 women and 7 children, and that it arrived at 10:22 a.m. local time in Caracas.

Castro’s account centered on families still in detention. He said those families were awakened at Dilley, moved to Arizona, and left with the impression that they were being sent to Venezuela before they were returned to Texas.

The Dilley Immigration Processing Center has long served as a family detention site, making the allegation politically charged even without a second deportation flight. In this dispute, the federal government and a member of Congress are describing different events, tied together by the same day and the same destination country.

DHS framed the matter as a factual correction, not a policy debate. Its response said the Caracas flight had landed safely before the quakes and that ICE bore no responsibility for people once they were no longer in custody.

Castro framed the same day through its human toll in Venezuela and the fear among families in U.S. detention. His statement linked the deportees who had already arrived in Caracas with the families who, he said, thought they were next.

That left two records in direct conflict: DHS saying the deportation allegation after the earthquakes was “FALSE,” and Castro saying families from Dilley were awakened, transferred, and led to believe they were being sent into a disaster zone. The argument now rests on whether those overnight transfers reflected an attempted deportation or a separate movement inside the ICE detention system.