After successful negotiations with the United States and El Salvador, Venezuela welcomed home 252 men held for five months in the infamous CECOT prison.

They arrived Friday, July 18, in two flights at Maiquetía International Airport north of Caracas, marking what TeleSUR called “a remarkable diplomatic victory for Venezuela’s ongoing campaign to defend its citizens abroad.” Earlier in the day, seven children separated by the U.S. government from their parents also arrived back in Venezuela after a flight from Texas.

In return, Venezuela freed ten U.S. citizens and permanent residents accused of political crimes. “Terrorists for innocents,” said President Nicolás Maduro. “We went to look for them from the concentration camps and we brought them back safe and sound.”

He explained that the prisoner exchange involved the release of confessed “foreign terrorists” and “agents of U.S. intelligence” accused of planning violent attacks in Venezuela, underscoring Venezuela’s commitment to protect its sovereignty and people.

The Trump administration’s choice to send scores of young men to a high-security prison in El Salvador was based on a lie: that they were part of a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua. But investigations by journalists and civil society groups like thedisappeared.org showed that most (if not all) of the men had no ties to organised crime, no criminal records and had been admitted legally to have their asylum claims heard.

Aside from outright cruelty and the lack of even the pretence of due process, these extraordinary renditions (to borrow a phrase from the George W. Bush years) have damaged Trump’s credibility on immigration issues. In her Substack column July 14, U.S. historian Heather Cox Richardson pointed to recent polls that show his actions are not going over well with the U.S. public.

Seventy-nine per cent of adults say immigration is good for the country. Eighty-five per cent of adults want laws to allow “immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time.” Seventy-eight per cent of adults want the law to allow “immigrants living in the U.S. illegally the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time.” Only 38 per cent want the government to deport “all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country.”