In a major prisoner swap, the United States has secured the release of U.S. citizens and residents held by Venezuelan authorities. They have been exchanged for more than 250 Venezuelan migrants the Trump administration had sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador earlier this year.

Caracas

A prisoner swap between the Trump administration and Venezuela has led to the return of Venezuelan migrants from a high-security prison in El Salvador and the release of American citizens previously detained in Venezuela. The exchange also included the reunification of seven children, separated from deported relatives, with their families in Venezuela. 

The Trump administration had deported around 250 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, accusing them of gang affiliations, though evidence was limited and at least one wrongful deportation was later admitted. The negotiations for the swap had been ongoing for months, with families advocating for the release of both migrants and children. The exchange underscores the use of detainees as bargaining chips in diplomatic negotiations.

Venezuelans return home: Trump administration completes prisoner swap

In a video posted online, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced he had returned all the Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration had sent to a high-security prison in this country earlier this year. Bukele said they were all accused of being part of a criminal organisation with many facing serious charges. We carried out this exchange, he wrote, in return for a considerable number of Venezuelan political prisoners, people the regime had held for years and all the American citizens it was keeping as hostages. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted the video minutes later, confirming that ten Americans detained in Venezuela were on their way home. Earlier in the day, a US plane arrived at Caracas airport from Texas, carrying seven children who had been separated from deported relatives. We are very happy with the return of these seven children to their homeland. They have been rescued and freed. Today they are reunited with their families, their mothers, their grandmothers and all of Venezuela. President Nicolás Maduro had used the detention of Americans as a bargaining chip with the Trump administration, who had sent roughly 250 Venezuelan migrants to the maximum security prison in El Salvador without due process, as part of his hardline deportation policy, and accused them of ties to the Tren de Aragua gang, though his administration provided little evidence of it, and later admitted at least one man had been wrongly deported. I want to thank President Donald Trump as well for the decision to rectify this totally irregular situation. Families of the migrants held in El Salvador had lobbied for months for their release and for that of the children held in the US. Negotiations for the prisoner swap had been ongoing since May but had faced repeated roadblocks. Facing deep economic woes and political isolation, Maduro has continued to jail dissidents and foreign nationals as he pressured the US to ease oil sanctions. This latest exchange offers rare relief for families, but it also underscores how human lives are increasingly being used as diplomatic currency. Alessandro Rampietti, Al Jazeera.

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Breakdown