U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Wednesday announced the deportation of a Venezuelan colonel accused of torturing and repressing dozens of dissidents during the rule of Nicolás Maduro.
Rafael José Quero Silva, a colonel in the Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela (GNB), was originally detained by ICE in 2025 after victims of his repressive actions living in the U.S. reported his presence on American soil to the FBI.
ICE confirmed on Wednesday that Quero Silva was deported from the United States and sent back to Venezuela earlier this month following a Department of Justice immigration judge’s order of removal.
“ICE officers continue to remove human rights violators to their home countries,” Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Miami Field Office Director Matthew Elliston said. “This removal reflects the outstanding work of ICE Miami, HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] Miami, FBI Miami, and the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.”
“We are committed to public safety and national security, and to ensuring the United States does not become a safe haven for individuals who participated in persecution, torture, or other serious human rights abuses,” he continued.
The now-deported Venezuelan soldier entered the United States on June 20, 2016, at Miami International Airport but overstayed his visa. According to reports published in 2025, Quero Silva had moved to the United States and requested political asylum for him and his family at some point in 2017.
ICE recounted on Wednesday that the deported GNB colonel served as the commander of the Venezuelan National Guard’s 47th detachment in Barquisimeto, Lara. Throughout his tenure, Quero Silva was involved in the use of excessive force, detention, and torture against dissidents of the socialist Maduro regime — directly overseeing the torture of at least 74 peaceful protesters in 2013.
The tortured protesters, ICE harrowingly detailed, were subjected to electric shocks, severe beatings with nightsticks and frozen water bottles, threats of rape, and other forms of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.
“HSI remains committed to working with our law enforcement partners to identify, investigate, and hold accountable human rights violators who seek refuge in the United States,” Homeland Security Investigations Miami Special Agent in Charge Jose R. Figueroa said. “This case reflects our unwavering commitment to protecting the integrity of our immigration system and ensuring that individuals who participated in persecution or torture cannot evade justice.”
The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported that five Venezuelan nationals had presented a civil lawsuit before a U.S. federal court against Rafael José Quero Silva. The group of Venezuelans reportedly identified themselves as victims of the colonel’s torture and abuse. El Nacional, citing corresponding court documents, detailed that one of the victims denounced having received a shot in the abdomen, while another denounced having been struck by projectiles at close range.
Several instances of physical assault, threats, humiliation, and psychological distress allegedly involving the deported military official were also reported before the court. Furthermore, El Nacional reported that one of the alleged victims stated that the experience “had such a severe impact that it brought them to have suicidal thoughts.”
El Nuevo Herald detailed on Thursday that the five Venezuelans that sued Quero Silva had participated in the early 2013 nationwide anti-regime protests that erupted in Venezuela following the death of late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez and the sham April 2013 “election” of Nicolás Maduro.
According to the Venezuelan outlet El Pitazo, victims of Quero Silva’s repression denounced that the 47th detachment in Barquisimeto, under the colonel’s orders, physically assaulted protesters and subjected them to psychological abuse and threats of sexual assault.
Upon being transferred to a detention center, the victims allegedly were beaten until they acknowledged Nicolás Maduro as their “president.” The detachment was reportedly given the infamous title of “Detachment 120” by a non-government organization that documented at least 120 victims of the military unit’s repression in Barquisimeto.
Most shockingly, Venezuelan journalist Doricer Alvarado denounced in 2018 that Quero Silva had participated as an extra in a Miami Hispanic television soap opera, playing the role of a policeman. Alvarado affirmed at the time that she had been the target of Quero Silva’s persecution when she was covering the anti-regime protests in the Venezuelan state of Lara.
“Part of the reason I left Venezuela was because of him,” Alvarado told El Nuevo Herald in 2018. “In the midst of the repression, we journalists covering the demonstrations were persecuted by military intelligence.”
At press time, the deportation of Rafael José Quero Silva is the latest publicly known case of the removal of a member of a repressive regime from U.S. territory by ICE. In May, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that ICE arrested Adys Lastres Morera — sister of Ania Guillermina Lastres, the president of the Cuban communist regime’s GAESA conglomerate.
Last year ICE arrested and deported Daniel Morejón García, an official of the Cuban Interior Ministry known for his involvement in the brutal repression of Cuban anti-communist dissidents during the historic July 2011 wave of protests.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.