Venezuela releases jailed Americans in deal that frees migrants deported
to El Salvador by US
[July 19, 2025]
By REGINA GARCIA CANO, ERIC TUCKER and MEGAN JANETSKY
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela on Friday released 10 jailed U.S.
citizens and permanent residents in exchange for getting home scores of
migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under
the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, officials said.
The complex, three-country arrangement represents a diplomatic
achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás 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 said in a statement in
which he thanked Bukele, a Trump ally.
Bukele said 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 250 Venezuelan migrants freed by El
Salvador, which in March agreed to a $6 million payment from the Trump
administration to house them in its notorious prison.
That arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th
century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly 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 claims.
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 released by El Salvador’s government on Friday showed
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, some of the migrants crossed themselves,
cried and hugged one another. They wore face masks and street clothes.
Maduro alleged that some 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 told reporters the men would undergo
medical tests and background checks before they can go home.
One of the men is reportedly Andry Hernández Romero, a makeup artist who
fled Venezuela last year and was taken into Immigration and Customs
Enforcement custody at a border crossing 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 Hernández Romero’s legal team and they
have confirmed 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
team.”
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 authorities, who called his
comments “cynical” and referred to Bukele as a “neofascist."
Families say the Americans released are innocent
The State Department office responsible for negotiating the release of
American detainees posted a photo Friday evening of the newly released
prisoners smiling for the camera inside an airplane bringing them home,
some clutching an unfurled American flag.
A plane carrying the freed Americans arrived late Friday evening at
Joint Base San Antonio, with some waving flags and rushing to embrace
welcomers after they landed.
Among those released was 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, whose family says he
was kidnapped in January by Venezuelan border 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 said.
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Migrants deported months ago by the United States to El Salvador
under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown arrive at
Simon Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, Friday,
July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan authorities detained nearly a dozen U.S. citizens in the
second half of 2024 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,"
said a statement from Christian Castenada, 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, said Venezuelan
officials 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
migrants' detention in El Salvador to flip the script on the U.S.
government, forcing even some of his strongest political opponents
to agree with his condemnation of the migrants’ treatment.
Their return will allow Maduro to reaffirm support 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 policy of
shunning Maduro government officials and recognizing only the
National Assembly elected in 2015 as the legitimate government of
the country. Signed by Rubio, the cable said U.S. officials 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 government
took into custody in its brutal campaign to crack down on dissent in
the 11 months since Maduro claimed to win reelection.
Besides the U.S., several other Western nations also do not
recognize Maduro’s claim to victory. They instead point to tally
sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its
candidate, Edmundo González, won the July 2024 election by a more
than a two-to-one margin.
The dispute over results prompted immediate protests, and the
government responded by detaining more than 2,000 people, mostly
poor young men. González fled into exile in Spain to avoid arrest.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have migrated since 2013, when its
oil-dependent economy came undone and Maduro became president. Most
settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the COVID-19
pandemic, many 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 recent exchanges.
In May, Venezuela freed a U.S. Air Force veteran after about six
months in detention. Joseph St. Clair's family has said the language
specialist, who served four tours in Afghanistan, had traveled to
South America to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Three months earlier, six other Americans whom the U.S. government
considered wrongfully detained in Venezuela were released 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 migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. Hundreds of
Venezuelans have since been deported to their home country.
Maduro’s government had accused the Trump administration of
“kidnapping” the children by placing them in foster care after their
parents were deported.
___
Tucker reported from Washington and Janetsky from Mexico City.
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Seung Min Kim in Washington
and photographer Salvador Melendez in San Salvador, El Salvador,
contributed to this report.
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