Trump to send Venezuelans back to Maduro’s repressive state

The government of Nicolás Maduro will accept Venezuelans deported by the United States, President Donald Trump said Saturday, clearing the way for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who currently enjoy protected status in the United States to be sent back to the authoritarian socialist regime that many have fled.

“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,” Trump wrote Saturday morning on Truth Social. “Venezuela has further agreed to supply the transportation back.”

The details of the arrangement, including the logistics of Venezuela’s offer of transportation, were not immediately disclosed. Human rights advocates and Venezuelan opposition politicians have warned against repatriating the citizens of a country that under Maduro has been an economically failing, politically repressive pariah state.

Trump’s announcement came a day after his special missions envoy met with Maduro in Caracas. Richard Grenell returned from the visit with six Americans who had been detained in the aftermath of Venezuela’s July presidential election.

U.S. officials and others have said Maduro lost the election; A Washington Post analysis of voting receipts showed that opposition challenger Edmundo González likely won by a 2-1 margin.

While the Trump administration cast the Americans’ return as a diplomatic victory, critics of Maduro said the unusual decision to honor the Venezuelan president with a visit in Caracas by a senior U.S. official would only help legitimize his regime.

The United States has recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect, but the opposition candidate has fled the country under threat of arrest and is now trying to build support from exile. A deportation deal with Maduro, he told the Washington Post last month, would allow the autocrat to “use returning Venezuelans to his political advantage.”

Mauricio Claver Carone, the State Department’s special envoy for Latin America, said Friday there would be no deal.

“This is not a negotiation,” he told reporters. “The Venezuelan criminals of Tren de Agua and other groups have to be deported, and Venezuela has to accept them. It is their responsibility … it is not negotiable. … And if they don’t comply with these requirements, obviously, as President Trump himself has said, ‘There will be major consequences.’ ”

But Maduro has already gained from the exchange.

His government celebrated Grenell’s visit, sharing images of the men shaking hands and declaring a “new beginning in bilateral relations.” The sides discussed migration, the “negative impact of economic sanctions against Venezuela, U.S. citizens involved in criminal offenses within Venezuelan territory, and the integrity of Venezuela’s political system,” the government said in a statement.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem this week rescinded an 18-month extension of temporary protected status of about 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States. It had been granted by her predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas.

Noem was expected to decide Saturday what to do with a large group of those migrants whose legal status is now set to expire in April.