San Salvador (AFP) – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele offered Venezuela Sunday a trade of 252 Venezuelans deported to his country by the United States for an equal number of political prisoners held by President Nicolas Maduro’s regime. The offer followed a broadside from President Donald Trump against US Supreme Court judges who on Saturday ordered a halt to removals like that of the Venezuelans, which the administration has carried out under an obscure wartime law.
“I want to propose to you a humanitarian agreement calling for the repatriation of 100 percent of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported,” Bukele wrote to Maduro on X. The prisoners would be sent “in exchange for the release and handing over of an identical number from among the thousands of political prisoners that you hold,” he added. The Salvadoran leader, who was hosted at the White House last week, said that “all the Venezuelans we have in custody were detained as part of an operation against gangs like Tren de Aragua in the United States.”
In little more than a month, 288 migrants accused by the Trump administration of belonging to gangs including Tren de Aragua — now defined as a terrorist organization by Washington — have been shipped to El Salvador. The US is paying Bukele’s government to imprison them in the country’s notorious CECOT prison outside the capital San Salvador. Late on Sunday, Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab described Bukele’s prisoner exchange offer as “cynical,” demanding a “complete list” of the detained migrants along with an accounting of what crimes they are accused of and whether they had been given due process.
– Trump takes on judges –
The Trump administration has clashed with judges at home over the deportations. The Supreme Court’s Saturday order at least temporarily halted what rights groups warned were imminent deportations of Venezuelan migrants being held in Texas, who have been accused of being gang members. More broadly, the decision temporarily prevents the government from continuing to expel migrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act — last used to round up Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Administration officials from Trump down have claimed that illegal immigration and gang activity amounts to an “invasion” of the United States and this justifies using the law.
Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue.” The White House has been butting heads with federal judges, rights groups, and Democrats who say Trump has trampled or ignored constitutionally enshrined rights in rushing to deport migrants, sometimes without the right to a hearing. “We’re getting closer and closer to a constitutional crisis,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told CNN.
In the most publicized case, Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent to CECOT without charge. The administration admitted that Abrego Garcia had been included among the deportees due to an “administrative error,” and the Supreme Court ruled that the government must “facilitate” his return. Trump has since doubled down, however, insisting that Abrego Garcia is in fact a gang member, including posting an apparently doctored photo on social media Friday of a gang symbol tattooed on his knuckles. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who met Abrego Garcia on Thursday, said the man was bewildered by his detention and felt threatened in prison.
On Sunday, Van Hollen challenged the Trump administration to provide evidence that it is respecting US laws in its deportation sweep. “I’m okay with whatever the rule of law dictates,” he told CNN, “but right now we have a lawless president…who is ignoring the order of the Supreme Court of the United States to facilitate (Abrego Garcia’s) return.”
– Political prisoners –
Bukele claimed Sunday that many of the Venezuelan detainees now in his country “have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some had even been arrested multiple times before being deported.” “Unlike our detainees…your political prisoners have not committed any crime. The only reason they are imprisoned is because they have opposed you and your electoral frauds,” he told Venezuela’s Maduro.
Maduro claimed victory in a disputed presidential election last year, sparking mass protests and a crackdown that left 28 people dead and 2,400 behind bars. About 500 of those remain locked up, though activists say dissident arrests have continued. Bukele added that he was seeking the release of prominent Venezuelans such as Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of Maduro’s 2024 presidential challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia; journalist Roland Carreno; activist lawyer Rocio San Miguel; and opponents who have been holed up for more than a year in Argentina’s Caracas embassy. He also cited 50 citizens of other nations, among them Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Latin Americans. “Our foreign ministry will send formal correspondence,” he said.
© 2024 AFP
