Trump’s immigration policy and ties to Bukele hit Venezuelan opposition and give Maduro a boost

The deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans from the United States to Nayib Bukele’s mega-prison in El Salvador, the Anti-Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), has fueled a debate within the ranks of the Venezuelan opposition. Donald Trump’s hostility toward the diaspora places democratic forces in an unexpected dilemma: that their allies are dispensing questionable treatment to their compatriots and undermining their cause in the eyes of the population. It should be added that the deportations make no distinction between criminals and innocent people and have the enthusiastic approval of El Salvador’s president, a Trump ally with whom part of the Venezuelan opposition sympathizes.

All this is happening in a society that has been unable to realize the hope of peaceful political change and is currently suffering from a ravaged economy that is headed toward a new recession due to Washington’s sanctions and tariffs. Some polls also predict the outbreak of a new wave of migration, but now with nowhere to escape.

The situation is being exploited by the currents opposing María Corina Machado within the anti-Chavismo opposition (these currents have a presence online, but are still in a clear minority on the streets) to criticize her leadership and question her alleged lack of autonomy from Washington. Some of these groups are determined to participate in the parliamentary and gubernatorial elections being held by the Maduro regime on May 25.

Added to this is another circumstance, until now obscure: within Bukele’s closest advisory circle, there has long been a group of Venezuelan experts opposed to Chavismo who wield enormous influence over his decision-making and strategy design. The best known of these is Sara Hanna Georges, who, like others, was a member of Voluntad Popular a few years ago, the opposition party founded by Leopoldo López. Nicolás Maduro conveniently exploits this fact and has accused Machado and López of supporting the deportations. “Who came out to support the kidnapping of these Venezuelans in El Salvador?” Maduro said on his television program. “Who came out to support keeping them kidnapped and Bukele making this illegitimate, illegal, and abusive proposal [of a prisoner exchange]?”

“The issue of deportees depends solely on Trump’s decisions; none of this is being agreed upon with the opposition,” says Edward Rodríguez, a journalist and director of Datos es Noticia, who worked with Juan Guaidó when he was opposition leader. “This whole episode of the prisoner exchange proposed by Bukele is nothing more than political marketing,” he maintains.

“There is something in common between Maduro’s political prisoners and the Venezuelans deported by Trump to the Cecot in El Salvador, about whom nothing is known a month later: they have not had due process; they are being accused of crimes without any evidence,” says Ade Ferro, president of the Venezuelan American Caucus.

“They are all Venezuelans, and they end up being victims, direct or indirect, of Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship. They, like many other innocent people in ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention centers, deserve the support of our leadership. We must speak out about their causes, make their names visible, and make known the abuses inflicted on them. Just like the political prisoners in Venezuela,” Ferro adds. “I don’t question the leadership of Machado or (Edmundo) González Urrutia, what they have faced, and what they have put at stake. But I think not raising our voices in defense of innocent imprisoned Venezuelans is a mistake. Venezuelans today have no representation.”

In a recent interview with journalist Carla Angola, Machado — who remains the country’s most popular leader — affirmed that she is doing everything in her power to help stranded and sanctioned Venezuelans in the United States. “I know there is enormous anguish over the decisions the Trump administration has made to combat illegal immigration,” Machado said. “I want to assure all Venezuelans: everything that could have been done, that is appropriate, to defend them in the United States, has been done. We are doing so, of course, with discretion, without seeking to turn this into a domestic political issue, because that would be a huge mistake.”

Machado then made a statement that some people in Venezuela are already beginning to question: “President Trump is an ally of democracy, of the Venezuelan people. The measures he has recently taken (increased sanctions) demonstrate this. The Venezuelan cause must unite us all, not be a weapon to be thrown from one party to another.”

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