Prisoner Trade-Off? Bukele Offers Maduro a Controversial Deal

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela to accept deported US Venezuelans in return for releasing “political prisoners.”

In a post on X, Bukele offered to exchange 252 Venezuelans currently detained in El Salvador’s mega prison for “an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners” he says Venezuela holds, including family members of opposition leaders. “Unlike our detainees, many of whom have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some have even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime,” Bukele said in the post, which was directed at Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. “The only reason they are imprisoned is because they opposed you and your electoral fraud.”

Law enforcement authorities in the U.S. and El Salvador assert that most prisoners at Cecot prison are members of Tren de Aragua and MS-13 with minimal solid proof presented thus far. The Venezuelan administration describes these deportations as a "kidnapping" because they reject the deportees' status as criminals and insist on their immediate repatriation. Attorney General Tarek William Saab from Venezuela filed a request to El Salvador for information about detainees such as Venezuelan national identities and health conditions while alleging human rights violations during the process. Salvadoran President Bukele identified Rafael Tudares as well as Corina Parisca de Machado along with other political detainees who are imprisoned in Venezuela's custody. The Salvadorian president offered to trade four Venezuelan asylum seekers who resided at the Argentine Embassy in exchange for these individuals who were accused of terrorist activities tied to Machado. El Salvador shows its support for Bukele despite his popularity despite human rights concerns and civil liberty suspensions while he confronts crimes as documented by the Trump administration.