By REGINA GARCIA CANO and JOSHUA GOODMAN
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Six Americans who had been detained in Venezuela in recent months were freed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro after he met Friday with a Trump administration official tasked with urging the authoritarian leader to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, announced the release of the six men on social media. The visit by Grenell came as a shock to many Venezuelans who hoped that Trump would continue the “maximum pressure” campaign he pursued against Maduro during his first term.
Grenell’s hours long trip to Venezuela, according to the White House, was focused on Trump’s efforts to deport Venezuelans back to their home country, which currently does not accept them, and on the release of the detained Americans.
“We are wheels up and headed home with these 6 American citizens,” Grenell posted on X along with a photo showing him and the men aboard an aircraft. “They just spoke to @realDonaldTrump and they couldn’t stop thanking him.”
The meeting in Venezuela’s capital took place less than a month after Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost last year’s election. The U.S. government, along with several other Western nations, does not recognize Maduro’s claim to victory and instead points to tally sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its candidate, Edmundo González, won by a more than a two-to-one margin.
Venezuelan state television aired footage of Grenell and Maduro speaking in the Miraflores Palace and said the meeting had been requested by the U.S. government.
Signing an executive order in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump was asked if Grenell being filmed meeting with Maduro lent legitimacy to an administration that the Trump White House hasn’t official recognized.
“No. We want to do something with Venezuela. I’ve been a very big opponent of Venezuela and Maduro,” Trump responded. “They’ve treated us not so good, but they’ve treated, more importantly, the Venezuelan people, very badly.”
Trump added that Grenell is “meeting with a lot of different people, but we’re for the people of Venezuela.”
Some Republicans criticized the visit.
“This is terrible timing,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy to Venezuela and Iran during the first Trump administration. “A meeting with Maduro will be used by him to legitimize his rule and show that the Americans recognize him as president. If the purpose is to deliver a tough message about migration issues, the president could’ve done that himself. There was no need to send someone to Caracas.”
The dispute over the election results sparked nationwide protests. More than 2,200 people were arrested during and after the demonstrations.
Among those detained are as many as 10 Americans who the government has linked to alleged plots to destabilize the country. Neither the White House nor Maduro’s government immediately released the names of the six who were freed Friday.
A nonprofit group that had advocated for the release of a detainee said David Estrella, a 62-yer-old who was last heard from in September, was among those on their way back to the U.S. Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello had accused Estrella of being part of an alleged plot to assassinate Maduro.
The Trump administration has taken a slew of actions to make good on promises to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
Those measures include the revocation earlier this week of a Biden administration decision that would have protected roughly 600,000 people from Venezuela from deportation, putting some at risk of being removed from the country in about two months.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Friday that Trump had instructed Grenell to “identify a place and ensure that repatriation flights” carrying Venezuelans, including members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, “land in Venezuela.” She said Trump also ordered Grenell to “ensure that all U.S. detainees in Venezuela are returned home.”
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2013, when its economy unraveled and Maduro first took office. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the pandemic, migrants increasingly set their sights on the U.S.
Venezuelans’ desire for better living conditions and their rejection of Maduro are expected to keep pushing people to emigrate.
Ahead of the presidential election last year, a nationwide poll by Venezuela-based research firm Delphos showed about a quarter of the population thinking about emigrating if Maduro was re-elected.
Grenell has reached out to Maduro before on Trump’s behalf to secure the release of imprisoned Americans only to come home empty handed.
In 2020, he traveled with Erik Prince, the founder of controversial security firm Blackwater, to Mexico City for a secret meeting with a top Maduro aide. The backchannel talks centered on Maduro’s offer to swap eight Americans then imprisoned in Venezuela for businessman Alex Saab, a close ally of the president charged in the U.S. with money laundering, The Associated Press previously reported.
No deal was struck and Grenell’s demand that Maduro step down was dismissed by the Venezuelan president’s envoy. Grenell has always denied he was negotiating a hostage swap.
Later, in December 2023, the Biden administration exchanged Saab for 10 Americans as part of a policy to re-engage Maduro ahead of presidential elections.
Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Washington.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
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