El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele caught headlines after proposing a stark diplomatic exchange on Sunday: 252 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States and held in an El Salvador prison would return to Venezuela if the Venezuelan government freed an equal number of political prisoners.
Bukele announced this in a post on X (formerly Twitter), addressing directly President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. He requested that Maduro hand over “252 of the political prisoners you are holding,” saying nothing about what would be done with those people upon arrival in El Salvador.
Articles you should read now:
How old is Bill Clinton, when was he president of the United States and what does he do now?
The background of U.S. deportations and detention in El Salvador
Last month, the U.S. under the Trump administration deported no less than 200 Venezuelans, accusing many of them of being intimately linked with the notorious Tren de Aragua criminal gang. As the strained U.S.-Venezuelan relations mean that there are no safe returns possible, the deportees were sent to El Salvador.
El Salvador is currently keeping the detainees inside the high-security Terrorism Confinement Center, a prison that was built under Bukele’s controversial tough-on-crime policies. Reportedly, the U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million for these detainees’ upkeep.
Who are the political prisoners?
In his message, Bukele named several high-profile Venezuelan detainees as potential candidates for the exchange. These include:
- Roland Carreño, a journalist and political activist;
- Rocío San Miguel, a human rights lawyer;
- Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of opposition leader María Corina Machado, who Bukele says is facing daily threats at her home.
An interesting addition to this list is that almost 50 other foreigners are included-—U.S. citizens and German and French citizens-which gives greater weight for an international audience to this proposal.
Venezuela responds with continued silence
Up to this point, there has been no reply from the Venezuelan Ministry of Communication concerning Bukele’s proposal. The Venezuelan authorities have claimed that there are no political prisoners within their boundaries and that all prisoners were convicted under the laws of the land. They vehemently deny these allegations.
There are, however, many international organizations concerned with human rights that say otherwise. They put their numbers at more than 800 people suspected of being imprisoned in Venezuela for political reasons.
Legal tensions and human rights concerns
Yet the legality of both sets of detentions in Salvador and Venezuela is now being questioned. The lawyers and relatives of these deported Venezuelans in El Salvador dismiss any affiliation with criminal gangs. At the same time, their claims are bolstered by international rights groups, suggesting that Venezuela continues to detain its dissenters on politically motivated charges.
In a related legal development, the U.S. Supreme Court had just issued a stay on other deportations of Venezuelan migrants under wartime law, which came after the American Civil Liberties Union immediately made an emergency appeal to safeguard the migrants’ rights.
What’s next?
According to Bukele, the proposal will be transmitted in due course by the Salvadoran Foreign Ministry through diplomatic channels. It is uncertain whether the proposal will be accepted by Venezuela.
Depending on how the Maduro government reacts, this proposal combines international diplomacy with rights activism, which may either set a precedent or prop up new controversy.
