Venezuela frees six Americans after meeting between President Maduro and Trump envoy
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CARACAS, Venezuela — Six Americans who had been detained in Venezuela in recent months were freed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro after he met with a senior Trump administration official tasked with urging the authoritarian leader to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the United States.
President Trump and his envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, announced the release of the six men on social media. Grenell posted on X a photo showing him and the men aboard an aircraft.
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 wrote Friday on X. “They just spoke to @realDonaldTrump and they couldn’t stop thanking him.”
Trump wrote Saturday on his social media site that he was happy to have the Americans back home.
“And very important to note, that Venezuela has agreed to receive, back into their Country, all Venezuela illegal aliens who were encamped in the U.S., including gang members of Tren de Aragua. Venezuela has further agreed to supply the transportation back,” he wrote. “We are in the process of removing record numbers of illegal aliens from all Countries, and all Countries have agreed to accept these illegal aliens back.”
The press office of Venezuela’s government said Saturday it would not officially comment on the claims for now.
The visit by Grenell came as a shock to many Venezuelans who hoped Trump would continue the “maximum pressure” campaign he pursued against the authoritarian Venezuelan leader during his first term.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been sworn in to serve a third term despite plentiful credible evidence that his opponent won the election.
The meeting came 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 by a landslide. 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 Urrutia, won by more than a 2-to-1 margin.
Venezuelan state television aired video of Grenell and Maduro speaking in the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, the capital, and said the meeting had been requested by the U.S. government.
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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 officially 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.”
Maduro, appearing on state television after Grenell had left Venezuela, said the visit yielded “initial agreements” but did not provide any details.
“I have seen three U.S. presidents pass before me,” Maduro said. “This is the fourth term, and our message has been one: We want to build relationships of respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty, for Venezuela’s democratic life, for international law and for our Latin American region.”
Before the release, 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,” he said. “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 Venezuela’s election results sparked nationwide protests. More than 2,200 people were arrested during and after the demonstrations. Among those detained were as many as 10 Americans whom the government said it had 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-year-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.
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Friday that Trump ordered Grenell to “ensure that all U.S. detainees in Venezuela are returned home.” She said Trump also 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.”
The Trump administration’s crack down on immigration includes the revocation 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.
The Trump administration says it’s in talks with El Salvador to take third-country migrants and aims to send members of a Venezuelan gang to its prisons.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their 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 and his policies are expected to keep pushing people to leave.
The 1,500 migrants living in this Mexico City encampment face hard choices with President Trump in office.
Before 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 reelected.
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 back-channel talks centered on Maduro’s offer to swap eight Americans then imprisoned in Venezuela for businessman Alex Saab, a close Maduro ally 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 laughed off 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 reengage Maduro ahead of presidential elections.
Garcia Cano and Goodman write for the Associated Press. Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Goodman from Miami.
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