Landing of liberated Venezuelan migrants at Simón Bolívar Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on Friday, July 18, 2025. Photo: Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters.
By Misión Verdad – Jul 21, 2025
Some 252 Venezuelan citizens who were being held captive at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador have returned to Venezuela thanks to the efforts of Venezuela’s government.
These individuals had been detained since March, setting a worrisome precedent in the region regarding human trafficking. All were imprisoned under agreements between US President Donald Trump and his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele.
The case has had significant political repercussions because it has become one of the most brutal expressions of the migration and security policies implemented by the current US administration.
Now, with the return of these citizens to Venezuela, it is important to address the various aspects of this important case, now considered a political and diplomatic victory for Venezuela.
Negotiations and agreements
According to reports, negotiations have been underway for months between the governments of Washington and Caracas on this matter.
The release occurred simultaneously with the surrender of 10 US citizens who were detained and prosecuted in Venezuela for various crimes under Venezuelan law.
Similarly, an as yet undetermined number of people associated with the Venezuelan opposition have reportedly been released from prison, their circumstances changing due to other administrative measures.
Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly (AN) and negotiator for the Venezuelan side, stated that the Salvadoran president did not participate in the negotiations. Rodríguez called Bukele a “clown” and “an errand boy” and dismissed statements that presented him as a decision-maker in the case.
In practical terms, Bukele has implemented a jailer’s policy on behalf of the US government. As previously announced, the prison agreement between El Salvador and the United States involved millions of dollars in prison costs for the detention of citizens of other nationalities in the CECOT, setting a serious precedent under international standards.
The negotiation process between the White House and Miraflores highlights the existence of direct and effective channels of communication. Although the two countries do not formally maintain diplomatic relations, it is evident that channels of discussion exist to address issues of mutual interest in a practical manner.
This process is reportedly taking place due to the apparent dispute over the current Trump administration’s strategy for relations with the continent and the divergences in management lines regarding the Venezuelan issue between Richard Grenell and Marco Rubio.
The New York Times reported that US special envoy Richard Grenell participated on the US side, while the secretary of state reportedly approved the agreements. Meanwhile, President Nicolás Maduro himself confirmed that former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero participated as a mediator.
In a public address, the Venezuelan president also thanked Pope Leo XIV and Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio Chávez, as well as Donald Trump himself, for their efforts in this case.
None of the parties involved in the case has mentioned any level of involvement by Venezuelan opposition figures such as María Corina Machado or Edmundo González. This suggests a distancing of the Trump administration from these actors, as they are not considered as factors of consultation or influence and as they represent an obstacle to the tacit recognition that Washington grants to the Venezuelan government.
Indeed, upon learning of the return of the Venezuelans held in the Central American country, Machado and González issued veiled criticisms. It is worth remembering that both supported Trump’s immigration policy and the expulsion of Venezuelans to a third country amid flagrant violations of fundamental rights.
Machado gave an interview in which she stated that “negotiating with kidnappers is endorsing them,” referring to Rodríguez Zapatero. Meanwhile, González published a statement questioning the process as a “hostage negotiation,” but referring only to the Venezuelan state as the “kidnapper.”
Great diplomatic achievement
The repatriation of the 252 Venezuelans kidnapped in El Salvador represents a significant achievement for Venezuelan diplomacy, given the specifics, context, and significance of the case.
By sending incarcerated people to a third country, the Trump and Salvadoran administrations blatantly violated the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the American Convention on Human Rights, among others.
The serious aspect of this overall situation is that the US government had the support of the majority of Republican justices on the Supreme Court, which authorized it to “deport” citizens to a third country, as is customary when the United States expels citizens of various nationalities at its southern border with Mexico.
However, the case of the 252 Venezuelans was unprecedented and always remained very much a gray area, comparable only to the situation of West Asian citizens who have been confined for years in the prison at the Guantanamo Naval Base, a US military installation illegally occupying Cuban territory.
These were individuals allegedly responsible for crimes in the United States, referred to—without evidence—as members of the Tren de Aragua gang, for which they were treated as members of a “terrorist” organization.
However, their transfer to El Salvador took place within the context of Trump’s immigration policy, which employed an executive order that automatically classified any undocumented immigrant as “criminal,” thus creating an ambiguous framework.
Meanwhile, the situation of these Venezuelans was classified as “kidnapping” by the Venezuelan government, given that it occurred outside of any legal framework.
For months, the final list of names of those who were in the CECOT remained unclear, as their identities were officially handed over to the Venezuelan government only two days before their repatriation.
On the other hand, investigations by US media outlets, such as CBS and The New York Times, concluded that many of those apparently detained had not been formally prosecuted by any US court and that in many cases, some tried for alleged crimes never received verdicts.
These sources suggested at the time that 75% of those detained had no criminal record in Venezuela or the United States and that only about six of the 252 had committed a serious crime, according to CBS.
The New York Times, for its part, noted that only 32 men (12%) of the 252 had criminal charges against them in the United States, but they did not receive final sentences and were unable to defend themselves in court due to their transfer to El Salvador. A human rights organization in that country, Cristosal, stated that only seven of the 252 had criminal records.
Upon repatriation, the minister of the interior, justice, and peace of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, confirmed that only seven of the repatriated individuals had committed a serious crime in Venezuela at some point.
The ambiguity surrounding the list of names of those detained clouded any investigation of their legal status and criminal record for months.
These gaps in information were likely deliberate, since, as the majority of the individuals had no history of even irregular activity, this would contradict the narratives of the Trump administration, which stigmatized the kidnapped individuals as part of criminal gangs classified as terrorists.
Another serious problem was jurisdictional. The Venezuelan detainees were told at CECOT that they would be tried in courts and according to the laws of that El Salvador. Several were threatened with sentences of up to 300 years in prison despite having committed no crimes on Salvadoran soil. These individuals also received no legal assistance to mediate their detention.
The complex set of unclear areas, illegal situations, and new precedents represented an immense array of obstacles for Venezuelan diplomatic efforts to promote the repatriation of its nationals.
This would not be easy, considering that the Donald Trump administration has demonstrated an interest in discrimination and direct stigma toward the Venezuelan population. Recently, Nigeria’s foreign minister denounced the US government for pressuring African countries, including his own, to accept Venezuelan deportees.
Trump has led a cruel, intransigent administration that violates international norms. He has also clashed with various courts and institutions in his country, resulting in various accusations levied against his administration for violating immigrant rights.
The case of the 252 Venezuelans reached significant levels of criticism. The Trump and Bukele governments were singled out or addressed by various bodies, including the American Association of Jurists, the International Red Cross, members of parliament from the Democratic Party (United States), and Pope Leo XIV.
The Venezuelan government, for its part, reported the case to the United Nations, mounting increasingly public pressure against Bukele and Trump.
However, the milestone negotiations took place through private mechanisms. Clearly, the US government preferred to abandon its incriminating strategy and the illegal detention of Venezuelans in El Salvador in exchange for the highly symbolic repatriation of 10 US nationals detained in Venezuela, which created a new benchmark for the transactional logic of Trump’s political style.
It is important to emphasize that the significance of this diplomatic victory goes beyond Venezuela, as it sets a precedent with the potential to protect the situation of immigrants of other nationalities, who could be sent en masse to the Salvadoran CECOT.
While there is no end in sight to Trump’s targeted harassment of the Venezuelan and immigrant populations in his country, the return of the 252 Venezuelans represents a turning point and stems the trend toward building an international anti-immigrant prison system that would externalize—while exonerating the United States—human rights violations and the unfair treatment of people.
Jorge Rodríguez said that a release agreement had been reached with the United States on three occasions, but the terms were changed at the last minute. This information indicates a context of difficult talks.
So far, no reliable information has emerged regarding whether other issues were discussed in these negotiations. What the available information suggests is that the discussions took place under very asymmetrical conditions. Nevertheless, it is clear that Venezuela managed to carry out a strategy based on immutable principles, providing the Trump administration significant incentives to present the return of 10 citizens as a political victory.
The differences between the United States and Venezuela on this matter are likely to continue, considering the overall problems.
Over the weekend, Venezuela received seven minors who were in US social services foster care. These children had been separated from their parents by US immigration authorities.
According to the Venezuelan government, a group of 24 minors remain in the same situation on US soil after their parents’ parental rights were violated, and they have been detained and deported.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
