El Salvador Confirms US Legal Control Over Detained Venezuelans as Caracas Demands Return of Migrant Children

Mexico City, Mexico, July 11, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Thousands of Venezuelans marched Thursday in Caracas to demand the repatriation of 31 Venezuelan children reportedly separated from their parents and held in US custody, along with the safe return of Venezuelans illegally detained in El Salvador. 

The demonstration, led by the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) and joined by relatives of the Venezuelan children held in the US, marched from United Nations (UN) headquarters in the Venezuelan capital.

“Today we are demanding that the UN intervene and speak out to rescue these innocent children and the 252 Venezuelans who are locked up in a 21st-century concentration camp in El Salvador,” said Camila Fabri, head of the government program to repatriate Venezuelans abroad.

The protest follows recent revelations at the UN that the United States continues to exercise legal jurisdiction over more than 200 Venezuelan migrants held in El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison.

“The actions of the state of El Salvador have been limited to the implementation of a bilateral cooperation mechanism with another state, through […] the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure for the custody of persons detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement of that other state,” read an official document from the government of El Salvador in response to the UN probe into the deportations.

The document is a direct acknowledgment that the Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported to El Salvador in March, contrary to affirmations by both US and Salvadoran officials.

The document was revealed by lawyers representing Venezuelan men believed to be held in CECOT. They have told the UN Human Rights Office that the detainees were not informed of the US’ intention to deport them to a third country, that they did not have access to a lawyer, and that they were denied the opportunity to challenge their deportations.

The new evidence was included in a new court filing submitted to Judge James Boasberg who is presiding over a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington concerning the operation that saw the Venezuelan men accused of gang affiliations and forcefully expelled from the US under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

US officials have claimed in repeated public statements, including before Judge Boasberg, that they are powerless to act when it comes to the detention of the migrants in El Salvador.

Likewise, during a press briefing in the White House in April, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele mocked the notion that he would release any of the detainees sent to his country by the US. Bukele, in particular, outright refused to release Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran man wrongfully sent to CECOT and who had a court order preventing his deportation to El Salvador. Ábrego was eventually returned to face serious criminal charges in the US. 

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is currently conducting a probe into the forced expulsion of a group of mostly Venezuelan men to El Salvador to examine the legality, transparency, risk of human-rights violations, and compliance with international norms on detention and deportation.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has himself expressed serious concern over the forced expulsion of migrants to third countries.

“I have called on the US Government to take the necessary measures to ensure compliance with due process, to give prompt and full effect to the determinations of its courts, to safeguard the rights of children, and to stop the removal of any individual to any country where there is a real risk of torture or other irreparable harm,” said Türk in a press release from May.

Civil society organizations in the US, as well as relatives of Venezuelan children separated from their parents, have launched a campaign to compel the UN to take further action regarding human rights violations by the US.

“My six-year-old granddaughter is alone in the United States, a victim of being separated from her mother for the past six months,” said Enyi Zambrano, who identified herself as the grandmother of a child separated from her parents by US authorities.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez recently joined a group of mothers in demanding the children’s prompt return to their families in Venezuela. 

The Maduro government has labeled the retention of Venezuelan children a “kidnapping” as in the recent high-profile case of two-year-old Maikelys Antonella Espinoza. Caracas accused Washington of abducting Espinoza, whose migrant parents were deported separately—her mother back to Venezuela and her father to El Salvador’s high-security prison. After a year under US foster care, the toddler was repatriated to Venezuela and reunited with her mother in May following efforts by the Maduro government.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.