Members of the Salvadorian army stand guard at maximum security penitentiary CECOT on April 4, in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.
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BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Venezuela has freed 10 Americans as part of a larger prisoner exchange for Venezuelan detainees released from El Salvador, the U.S. and Salvadoran governments said Friday.
In a statement from the State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “the United States welcomes home ten Americans who were detained in Venezuela.”
“We also welcome the release of Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees that were also released from Venezuelan prisons,” the statement continued.
Earlier, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed the exchange in a message on X. He said his government handed over Venezuelans accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang in exchange for “a considerable number of Venezuelan political prisoners” as well as U.S. citizens. He said the swap was the result of “months of negotiations with a tyrannical regime,” and added that U.S. officials had helped to arrange the deal.
Rubio reposted Bukele’s message and wrote another message, saying, thanks to the U.S. president’s leadership, “ten Americans who were detained in Venezuela are on their way to freedom.”
In March, the Trump administration sent more than 230 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, whose government was paid to house them in a maximum security prison, known as CECOT.
The United States accused many of the migrants sent to El Salvador of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and deported them under the Alien Enemies Act, which had not been invoked since World War II.
Lawyers for the Venezuelan deportees have long argued that their removal from the United States to El Salvador was illegal. Dozens of those who were sent to El Salvador were in the middle of asylum cases, and had been held in U.S. detention centers for months.
On Friday, Bukele published a video of men in handcuffs he said were being handed over to Venezuela, as they boarded a plane taking them to Venezuela.
Today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country, accused of being part of the criminal organization Tren de Aragua (TDA). Many of them face multiple charges of murder, robbery, rape, and other serious crimes.
As was offered to the Venezuelan… pic.twitter.com/teuIT4GiRT
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 18, 2025
This is a developing story that will be updated.