Venezuela releases jailed Americans in deal that frees migrants deported to El Salvador by US
CARACAS Venezuela AP Venezuela on Friday disclosed jailed U S citizens and permanent residents in exchange for getting home scores of refugees deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration s immigration crackdown officers declared The complex three-country arrangement represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicol s Maduro helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a swap that he proposed months ago Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained in a message in which he thanked Bukele a Trump ally Bukele stated El Salvador had handed over all the Venezuelan nationals in its custody Maduro described Friday as a day of blessings and good news for Venezuela He called it the perfect day for Venezuela Venezuelans leave El Salvador s mega-prison Central to the deal are more than Venezuelan foreigners freed by El Salvador which in March agreed to a million payment from the Trump administration to house them in its notorious prison That arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an th century wartime law the Alien Enemies Act to speedily remove the men that his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang teeing up a legal fight that reached the U S Supreme Court The administration did not provide evidence to back up those states The Venezuelans had been held in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center or CECOT which was built to hold alleged gang members in Bukele s war on the country s gangs Human rights groups have documented hundreds of deaths as well as cases of torture inside its walls Lawyers have little access to those in the prison which is heavily guarded and information has been locked tight other than heavily produced state propaganda videos showing tattooed men packed behind bars Photos and videos issued by El Salvador s leadership on Friday manifested shackled Venezuelans sitting in a fleet of buses and boarding planes surrounded by officers in riot gear One man looked up and pointed toward the sky as he climbed aboard a plane while another made an obscene gesture toward police After arriving in Venezuela a few of the displaced persons crossed themselves cried and hugged one another They wore face masks and street clothes Maduro alleged that chosen of them were subjected to various forms of abuse at the Salvadoran prison and one of them even lost a kidney due to the beatings he received Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello recounted reporters the men would undergo physiological tests and background checks before they can go home One of the men is reportedly Andry Hern ndez Romero a makeup artist who fled Venezuela last year and was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a limit spanning in San Diego before eventually being flown to El Salvador Rep Robert Garcia D-Calif posted on social media Friday night We have been in touch with Andry Hern ndez Romero s legal company and they have verified he is out of CECOT and back in Venezuela We are grateful he is alive and are engaged with both the State Department and his gang In April Bukele proposed exchanging the Venezuelans for the same number of what he called political prisoners held by Maduro The suggestion provoked a harsh response from Venezuelan bureaucrats who called his comments cynical and referred to Bukele as a neofascist Families say the Americans issued are innocent The State Department office responsible for negotiating the release of American detainees posted a photo Friday evening of the newly distributed prisoners exhibiting delight for the camera inside an airplane bringing them home specific clutching an unfurled American flag A plane carrying the freed Americans arrived late Friday evening at Joint Base San Antonio with several waving flags and rushing to embrace welcomers after they landed Among those published was -year-old Lucas Hunter whose family says he was kidnapped in January by Venezuelan boundary guards from inside Colombia where he was vacationing We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal his younger sister Sophie Hunter announced Venezuelan administration detained nearly a dozen U S citizens in the second half of and linked them to alleged plots to destabilize the country We have prayed for this day for almost a year My brother is an innocent man who was used as a political pawn by the Maduro regime stated a report from Christian Castaneda whose brother Wilbert a Navy SEAL was arrested in his Caracas hotel room last year Global Reach a nonprofit organization that had advocated for his release and that of several other Americans mentioned Venezuelan authorities initially and falsely accused him of being involved in a coup but backed off that claim The three-country swap gives Maduro a boost The release of the Venezuelans meanwhile is an invaluable win for Maduro as he presses his efforts to assert himself as president despite credible evidence that he lost reelection last year Long accused of human rights abuses Maduro for months has used the newcomers detention in El Salvador to flip the script on the U S governing body forcing even several of his strongest political opponents to agree with his condemnation of the asylum seekers cure Their return will allow Maduro to reaffirm assistance within his shrinking base while demonstrating that even if the Trump administration and other nations see him as an illegitimate president he is still firmly in power Just a week ago the U S State Department reiterated its plan of shunning Maduro administration authorities and recognizing only the National Assembly elected in as the legitimate leadership of the country Signed by Rubio the cable noted U S functionaries are free to meet and have discussions with National Assembly members but cannot engage with Maduro regime representatives unless cleared by the Department of State Maduro s crackdown on dissent spurs detentions The Americans were among dozens of people including activists opposition members and union leaders that Venezuela s executive took into custody in its brutal campaign to crack down on dissent in the months since Maduro claimed to win reelection Besides the U S several other Western nations also do not recognize Maduro s claim to success They instead point to tally sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its candidate Edmundo Gonz lez won the July voting by a more than a two-to-one margin The dispute over results prompted immediate protests and the regime responded by detaining more than people mostly poor young men Gonz lez fled into exile in Spain to avoid arrest More than million Venezuelans have migrated since when its oil-dependent market came undone and Maduro became president Largest part settled in Latin America and the Caribbean but after the COVID- pandemic multiple saw the U S as their best chance to improve their living conditions The US and Venezuela have agreed on other releases Despite the U S not recognizing Maduro the two governments have carried out other modern exchanges In May Venezuela freed a U S Air Force veteran after about six months in detention Joseph St Clair s family has declared the language specialist who served four tours in Afghanistan had traveled to South America to seek healing for post-traumatic stress disorder Three months earlier six other Americans whom the U S cabinet considered wrongfully detained in Venezuela were circulated after Richard Grenell Trump s envoy for special missions met with Maduro at the presidential palace Grenell during the meeting in Caracas urged Maduro to take back deported movers who have committed crimes in the U S Hundreds of Venezuelans have since been deported to their home country Maduro s leadership had accused the Trump administration of kidnapping the children by placing them in foster care after their parents were deported This story has been corrected to reflect that the last name of the brother of the Navy SEAL jailed in Venezuela is Castaneda not Castenada
