Venezuela releases 10 Americans in migrant swap deal with El Salvador

Venezuela and El Salvador completed a controversial swap, returning over 250 migrants held in a notorious prison, following a $6 million US deal and pressure over harsh detention conditions.

In Short

• The deal is a rare cooperation win for Maduro, Bukele, and Trump.
• US Secretary Rubio praised Bukele for his key role in the agreement.
• Migrants were housed in El Salvador's harsh CECOT prison amid gang crackdown.

Venezuela has released 10 Americans who had been jailed in the country in exchange for the return of more than 250 Venezuelan migrants deported months ago to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.\

The agreement marks a rare moment of cooperation between adversarial nations. It delivers a political win for all three presidents involved — Venezuela’s Nicols Maduro, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and US President Donald Trump, who has made bringing home detained Americans a key foreign policy priority.

“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement. He credited Salvadoran President Bukele for playing a pivotal role in the breakthrough.

“I want to thank my team at the @StateDep & especially President @nayibbukele for helping secure an agreement for the release of all of our American detainees, plus the release of Venezuelan political prisoners,” Rubio added in a post on X.

The deal centers on more than 250 Venezuelan nationals who had been sent to El Salvador under a controversial arrangement signed in March. At the time, the Trump administration paid $6 million to house the migrants — many accused without evidence of gang affiliations — in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum-security prison known for harsh conditions.

The prison, emblematic of Bukele’s war on gangs, has faced international condemnation for reports of torture and hundreds of deaths. Human rights groups had raised alarms over the detention of the Venezuelans, most of whom had no clear ties to criminal activity.

For Caracas, the agreement is being framed as both a concession and a victory.

The Venezuelan government acknowledged it had paid a “steep price” by releasing the US nationals, but expressed satisfaction at the return of its citizens. It’s unclear how the detainees had been treated or charged in Venezuela, though the US has long maintained they were wrongfully held.

Bukele confirmed that his government had returned all Venezuelan nationals in custody. The Salvadoran leader had previously floated the idea of a migrant-for-prisoner swap as a pragmatic solution to regional tensions over immigration and incarceration.

- Ends
Inputs from Associated Press