Caracas (AFP) – A two-year-old Venezuelan girl, whose parents were deported from the United States without her, was flown home on Wednesday to Caracas, earning President Donald Trump rare praise from Venezuela’s government. “Welcome, Maikelys,” First Lady Cilia Flores said as she took the toddler into her arms on her arrival on a deportation flight carrying 226 Venezuelan migrants, state TV showed.
The separation of Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal from her parents had caused an outcry in the South American nation. Several demonstrations were held in Caracas to denounce her “abduction” by US authorities. Her mother, Yorelys Bernal, was not at the airport to greet her daughter but was reunited with her later at the presidential palace, where President Nicolas Maduro profusely thanked Trump for the girl’s return.
Striking an unusually conciliatory tone, he said that “there have been, and will be differences” with the Trump administration but called the return of the toddler a “profoundly humane act of justice.” Maikelys is one of several children caught up in Trump’s crackdown on illegal migration. Campaigners have also highlighted the case of a four-year-old cancer patient, who was deported with her mother to Honduras last month without medication, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Maikelys’ mother said she and her husband were separated from their daughter when they handed themselves over to US authorities after arriving in the country illegally in May 2024. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the girl was placed in foster care to protect her from her parents, who it claimed were members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua criminal gang. Venezuela says her father was among a group of Venezuelans transferred by the United States to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison for gangsters.
The transfers of the migrants to the brutal prison constituted one of Trump’s most controversial moves since his return to power in January. Washington said that the Venezuelans it sent to El Salvador were all members of Tren de Aragua, but has provided scant evidence to back that claim. The US Supreme Court and several lower courts have since temporarily halted transfers to CECOT, citing a lack of due process.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed that Maikelys’ father, Maiker Espinoza-Escalona, was a Tren de Aragua “lieutenant” who oversaw “homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking and operates a torture house.” It said the girl’s mother oversaw the recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution. The mother, Bernal, 20, claimed they were detained because they had tattoos, which US authorities have linked to gang activity.
Since February, more than 4,000 migrants have been sent home to Venezuela, some deported from the United States and others from Mexico, where they had gathered in the hope of crossing into the United States.
© 2024 AFP
