President Maduro Condemns US Transfer of Venezuelan Migrants to Salvadoran Prisons: 'We Will Not Rest Until We Return Them to Their Homeland'

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced that Venezuela will appeal to international organizations to condemn crimes against humanity committed against Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States to El Salvador.

Without any semblance of due process by US authorities, these migrants have been accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang. “This is the greatest attack any country in Latin America and the Caribbean has ever suffered, and it is an attack on the entire people of Venezuela, because our migrants are not terrorists, they are not criminals, they are not murderers. Our migrants are good, hard-working, productive people,” President Maduro said.

“We will not rest until we ensure that the Venezuelans who have been kidnapped and sent to prison in El Salvador—violated without due process or the right to defense—return to their homeland,” the president said this Monday during the program Con Maduro+.

He assured that he has issued a series of official grievances to the UN secretary-general, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, presidents of Latin America and the Caribbean, various human rights organizations, and the UNHCR migration organization so that “they can take action to protect Venezuelans. It cannot be that a person, just because they are Venezuelan, is captured, kidnapped without the right to defense and due process, [and] without a conviction, is imprisoned in a concentration camp in the United States and sent to Nazi concentration camps in El Salvador,” President Maduro stated.

“This situation must cease immediately. (The migrants) must return to their families in their country,” he declared.

Questions for Nayib Bukele
The Venezuelan president asked his Salvadoran counterpart, President Nayib Bukele, several public questions: “I ask you with respect, are you going to condone this cruelty, this injustice, without due process? To create concentration camps and imprison noble migrants, workers, good people, without trial, without having committed crimes in El Salvador, without any kind of conviction issued by a court in El Salvador? Is this fair? Is it humane, Nayib Bukele, just because they are Venezuelan migrants?”

President Maduro deplored the reports of individuals who have been detained in the United States while sleeping, people “who work to pay their rent, who had gone to register to return to their homeland,” he said, referring to the case of several young people from Zulia who registered to return to Venezuela but were detained by US authorities.

“They put them in jail, stole their cell phones, froze their accounts and assets, and then put them on a plane, handcuffed and beaten,” noted President Maduro. “When they arrived, they scraped their heads. What do you call that? Fascism and Nazism, and this issue creates great indignation!”

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An indignant mobilization against fascism
Maduro called for unity throughout Venezuela and insisted that “they will not rest until they achieve the return of our compatriots.”

“Venezuela rejects the Alien Enemies Act invoked by Trump,” he reiterated.

“This is a law passed 228 years ago, an antiquated law; the explanation for its creation is unknown,” recalled President Maduro. “The United States had already separated from the British Empire, but it maintained the idea of Monroeism,” which establishes the imperial vision of the British. “They inherited it completely,” he commented.

Maduro also announced the arrival of a Return to the Homeland flight this Saturday. The flight had been suspended last week due to inclement weather.

Recommendation: do not travel to the US
The President of the Republic reported that the Foreign Ministry issued a statement urging all Venezuelans to avoid traveling to the United States. “And to all Venezuelans who are there,” added the president, “we will use all available mechanisms to protect them legally.”

Maduro also noted that all those expelled from the United States had their properties and belongings illegally taken away, in addition to their honor being tarnished and humiliated.

(Alba Ciudad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/KW/SL