Faith leaders rally to help Venezuelan mother stranded in Miami<\/a><\/p>\nBut she says she never received a concrete response.<\/p>\n
Instead, the biggest obstacle turned out to be paperwork.<\/p>\n
Last month, Perez made it all the way to the airline counter at Miami International Airport, but was denied boarding. Airline staff told her she could not travel without a document issued by the Venezuelan government \u2014 something she did not have at the time.<\/p>\n
Determined not to miss another opportunity, Perez and her daughters returned to the airport this past weekend, this time spending the night there to make sure nothing would go wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank God …. the document arrived,\u201d Perez said in Spanish, expressing relief after finally receiving what is known as a \u201csafe pass,\u201d a travel document issued by Venezuela for a citizen without a valid passport. She says her husband, who was deported from the U.S. this year, helped her obtain it.<\/p>\n
Carrying her 1-year-old daughter Ixchel, Perez boarded the plane that would take them back to Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t the only one. \u2026 There are many Venezuelans in limbo,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Perez is one of the many migrants who turned over their passports to U.S. authorities when entering the country through the southern border \u2014 a common practice that can complicate efforts to leave voluntarily.<\/p>\n
For her 9-year-old daughter, Paola, the return home brings mixed emotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy because I\u2019m going to see my family. I really miss them,\u201d Paola said.<\/p>\n
But she added she will miss her life in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy friends and my teachers \u2026, I\u2019ve been with them for four years,\u201d she said. Paola was 5 years old when she arrived in the U.S.<\/p>\n
CBS News Miami first met the family in March, when Perez had already taken steps to self-deport by registering through the CBP Home app. The platform is part of a broader effort by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to encourage voluntary departures by, in some cases, offering financial incentives.<\/p>\n
However, Perez said she never heard back after submitting her request.<\/p>\n
Government figures on how many migrants have self-deported vary widely.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security has publicly claimed that 1.9 million-2.2 million undocumented immigrants had voluntarily left the country as of early 2026, some incentivized by stipends of up to $3,000 per person.<\/p>\n
But a CBS News analysis of data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review found a significantly lower figure \u2014 about 72,000 people between January 2025 and February 2026. Approximately 71% of those individuals were already in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the time of their departures.<\/p>\n
Immigration attorney Willie Allen says many of the cases tied to the CBP Home app involve limited follow-through.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of those, about 37,000 have received compensation,\u201d Allen said. \u201cI\u2019ve had several clients leave through the app, but only one actually received a payment.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Perez, the statistics were secondary to the outcome.<\/p>\n
After weeks of uncertainty, she shared a video with CBS News Miami showing the moment she boarded the plane \u2014 expressing gratitude that her journey was finally over.<\/p>\n
CBS News Miami reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for information about Perez\u2019s case. In a brief response, the agency said it had received the inquiry and would need more time to provide details.<\/p>\n
This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami.<\/a><\/p>\nThis story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 1:58 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yelitza Perez \u2014 holding daughter Ixchel, 1, while sitting next to daughter Paola, 9, at Miami International Airport…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-233142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}