Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela on Sunday, offering to release Venezuelans deported to his country from the United States in exchange for political prisoners in Venezuela.
Bukele has accepted from the U.S. at least 238 Venezuelans deported under allegations of being affiliated with the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs, with San Salvador accepting at least $6 million for imprisoning the deportees.
Bukele said 252 Venezuelans held in El Salvador could be released as part of a “humanitarian” exchange, if Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro agreed to release people who have “committed no crime” and are imprisoned for opposing “your electoral fraud.”
Among the political prisoners Bukele called for releasing were Rafael Tudares, the son-in-law of Edmundo González, the internationally-recognized victor of presidential elections held in July 2024. Bukele also called for the release of Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
El Salvadaor and Venezuela have not had diplomatic relations since 2019, although Bukele said he directed his foreign ministry to be in touch with Caracas.
Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office responded Sunday night, calling Bukele’s statements “cynical” and referring to the Salvadoran leader as a “neofascist,” The Associated Press reported.
The back-and-forth comes as Venezuelan and Salvadoran immigrants have been at the center of an escalating legal fight between the Trump administration and courts over the president’s deportation powers.
The Supreme Court on Saturday issued an emergency block against the Trump administration deporting hundreds more people to El Salvador amid an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union.
A New York Times investigation found most of the deported Venezuelans did not have criminal records beyond immigration offenses.
Bukele and President Trump are refusing to release a wrongly deported Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The White House is embracing the fight against Democrats and other critics who are standing up for the Salvadoran immigrant and father of three.
In his prisoner swap proposal, Bukele also called for the release of journalist Roland Carreño and lawyer and activist Rocío San Miguel. He also called for the freedom of four political prisoners seeking asylum in the Argentine Embassy and the release of 50 detained citizens of other nationalities, including American, German, Dominican, Argentine, Bolivian, Israeli, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Spanish, French, Guyanese, Dutch, Iranian, Italian, Lebanese, Mexican, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Ukrainian, Uruguayan, Portuguese, and Czech.
Caracas demanded Bukele’s government provide the Venezuelan government with a list of the people detained as well as their legal status and medical reports.
“The treatment received by Venezuelans in the United States and El Salvador, constitutes a serious violation of international human rights law and constitutes a crime against humanity,” it said in the statement, the AP reported.
Bukele’s proposal comes on the heels of an extremely warm welcome by Trump at the White House earlier this month.
The U.S. has a wide-ranging sanctions regime against Maduro’s government but secured the release of six Americans detained in the country in January, through a trip by special presidential envoy Richard Grenell.
