Trump Administration Deported 250 Venezuelans in Secretive Exchange for Detained Americans
In a startling revelation, reports have emerged that the Trump administration quietly deported around 250 Venezuelan nationals from a Salvadoran prison back to Venezuela in a secretive deal aimed at securing the release of American citizens held by the Venezuelan government.
The operation, which took place in recent months, is being described by officials familiar with the matter as part of a backchannel prisoner swap negotiated outside formal legal frameworks.
According to sources close to both U.S. and Latin American intelligence, the Venezuelan deportees had been transferred earlier this year to El Salvador’s controversial CECOT mega-prison after being forcibly removed from the United States.
Their removal was executed under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime statute invoked by the Trump administration to justify mass deportations without judicial review. Many of those deported had no criminal records in the U.S., and civil rights advocates say they were given no chance to challenge their expulsion in court.
Human rights organizations have condemned the move as a violation of international law and due process. The individuals, most of whom were Venezuelan asylum seekers or undocumented migrants, were accused by U.S. immigration authorities of having links to the Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang.
However, public evidence of these alleged affiliations has been scarce.
Once in El Salvador, the deportees were detained at the country’s notorious CECOT facility, a maximum-security prison that has drawn international criticism for alleged human rights abuses including overcrowding, indefinite detention, and torture.
The prison was built under President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping anti-gang crackdown, and many of its detainees have yet to be formally charged.
It was from this prison that the 250 Venezuelans were recently flown back to Caracas, reportedly aboard a Venezuelan military aircraft.
In return, the Venezuelan government under Nicolás Maduro released 10 American citizens, including oil executives and dual nationals who had been imprisoned for years on espionage and corruption charges widely seen as politically motivated.
While neither Washington nor Caracas has officially confirmed the arrangement, sources within U.S. diplomatic and immigration circles say the deal was part of behind-the-scenes negotiations aimed at easing tensions and resolving long-standing cases of American detainees in Venezuela.
Critics have questioned the legality and ethics of the arrangement, accusing the Trump administration of effectively using vulnerable migrants as bargaining chips in foreign policy negotiations. The secrecy surrounding the process has further fueled backlash from immigration lawyers and humanitarian groups who argue the deportees were denied their right to asylum and legal counsel.
This revelation also comes at a politically sensitive time, as questions mount about how immigration enforcement is being used not only as a domestic tool but also as leverage in international diplomacy. It remains unclear whether the Biden administration, which has distanced itself from many Trump-era immigration practices, was informed of or involved in any aspect of the exchange.
For now, human rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into the circumstances of the deportations, the conditions of detention in El Salvador, and the fate of those sent back to Venezuela—a country still mired in economic collapse and political repression.
The case underscores the complex and often opaque intersections between immigration policy, national security, and foreign diplomacy—especially when lives hang in the balance.
