Miami/The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) detained Venezuelan journalist Wilmer Solano in Miami Beach despite having a pending asylum application, according to his family and a union organization.
The arrest occurred in the Haulover Beach area last Sunday while he was working, the Association of Venezuelan Journalists Abroad (Apevex) reported, although ICE has not responded to questions about the reason for the detention.
“Solano has an asylum process, a work permit and a valid Florida driver’s license. He entered the United States legally in 2015 and has no criminal record in this country, nor in Venezuela,” Apevex said in a newsletter on its website.
“Solano has an asylum process, a work permit and a valid Florida driver’s license. He entered the United States legally in 2015 and has no criminal record in this country, nor in Venezuela”
The journalist has more than 20 years of experience, he worked on the Globovisión channel from 2002 to 2008, and was the owner and director of the news agency Zorro Comunicaciones CA, from where he covered campaigns of Venezuelan opponents, such as Henrique Capriles and Julio Borges, the group detailed.
The communicator “was a victim of attacks linked to his journalistic coverage” in Venezuela, where in August 2011 officials from the Tinaquillo mayor’s office beat him and his cameraman, Apevex added.
He was also director in Venezuela of the Social Responsibility news portal Nota Responsable with a printed version in the Diario Tal Cual, which closed due to government restrictions on the press, the association added.
His wife, María Moreno, launched a request for support on GoFundMe in which she assures that “he was detained without a court order and without facing criminal charges”, in addition to that “he has no criminal record, has lived in the United States for almost 12 years and has a pending asylum case.”
“Since then, we have followed the appropriate procedure for this process and are still awaiting a resolution. Wilmer has always worked hard to support our family, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that he has the legal representation he needs,” the woman wrote.
Her case joins that of other journalists detained by ICE, such as the Colombian Estefany Rodríguez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias and Univision 42 in Tennessee who was detained and released on bail last March, and the Salvadoran Mario Guevara, deported after covering a demonstration against the president, Donald Trump, in Georgia in 2025.
Her case joins that of other journalists detained by ICE, such as Colombian Estefany Rodríguez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias and Univision 42 in Tennessee, and Salvadoran Mario Guevara.
Solano’s detention also follows a new Trump rule that eliminates asylum seekers’ right to have an interview with an officer, thereby speeding up deportations of those with a pending petition.
In addition, the Administration is intensifying its anti-immigrant operations at the country’s airports, where plainclothes agents are arresting people with expired visas both at check-in counters and at boarding gates, the report said Tuesday. New York Times.
According to the newspaper, agents have been in recent weeks at 15 airports, where they have arrested people from more than twelve countries, including spouses of US citizens and workers in the technology sector, as a result of a cooperation agreement between the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE).
“This Administration is working diligently to ensure that undocumented aliens can no longer fly, unless it is to voluntarily deport themselves,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the newspaper, under whose supervision ICE operates, which carries out the arrest campaign launched by Trump.
The agency did not confirm to the newspaper whether it had expanded the arrest program or how many people have been detained at airports for having expired visas.
However, the increase in arrests at airports comes as detentions are intensified with the goal of reaching 2,000 arrests per day, approximately double those recorded earlier this year.
Among the recent arrests at airports is that of Ecuadorian Chantal Morales Rojas, 27, detained on July 20 when she was trying to travel from Denver to Oakland, California.
When she scanned her boarding pass an alarm went off, so she had to wait and shortly after she was intercepted by two plainclothes agents.
When she scanned her boarding pass an alarm went off, so she had to wait and shortly after she was intercepted by two plainclothes agents
The arrest of Morales Rojas, who entered the United States legally in 2023 in an exchange program, was recorded on video and went viral on social networks.
Before her exchange program ended on January 4, the Ecuadorian had submitted a request to remain in the country. A judge set him on $3,000 bail and he is expected to be released tomorrow after opening a GoFundMe account to cover his legal costs.
ICE arrests at airports have not discriminated against nationalities, as shown by the case that occurred at San Francisco International Airport, where a Ukrainian citizen was arrested on Wednesday of last week.
Iryna Gorb, who has lived in California for more than 10 years, was arrested after returning from a trip to Portland, said state Sen. Scott Wiener, who has helped provide her with legal assistance.
The arrest was captured on video by Richmond (California) Councilwoman Doria Robinson, which showed officers detaining Gorb inside the airport while she screamed for help and said she was Ukrainian.
The DHS said in a statement that Gorb overstayed his visa and remained in the United States “illegally” for 15 years, so he will remain in ICE custody pending deportation proceedings.
Among those detained at airports is also a woman from Uganda, in a wheelchair and with an asylum application in process, who suffers from sickle cell anemia, her lawyer told the Times.
“In 38 years of practicing immigration law, I have never seen anything like this and I know it is happening to many people,” Charles Kuck, lawyer for an Indian engineer detained while awaiting an extension of his work permit, told the newspaper.
