Trump official travels to Venezuela to negotiate deal for deporting Tren de Aragua gang members

President Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, has traveled to Venezuela to deliver an in-person message to socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro about accepting violent criminals deported from the United States.

On a call with reporters Friday, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the U.S. special envoy to Latin America, said Grenell will tell Maduro to take back all the Venezuelan criminals and Tren de Aragua gang members that have been ‘exported to the United States, and to do so unequivocally and without condition.’ 

Grenell will also demand that Veneuzeula immediately release American hostages being held in that country, Claver-Carone said.

The trip ‘focuses on two very specific issues. That we expect that Venezuelan criminals and gangs will be returned, as they are, to every country in the world, without conditions, and two, that American hostages need to be released immediately, unequivocally,’ he explained. 

‘This is not a quid pro quo. It’s not a negotiation in exchange for anything. President Trump himself has made that very clear.’ 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Friday that Grenell had arrived in Venezuela on orders from the president. 

Despite widespread belief among Venezuelans and much of the international community that Maduro lost the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election to opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, he was sworn into his third six-year term earlier this month.

The U.S. does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado has called on Venezuelan citizens to protest the Maduro regime and demand that González be installed as the rightful president of Venezuela.

As many as 10 Americans are currently detained in Venezuela, although the State Department has not declared them wrongfully detained. Three are U.S. citizens who allegedly participated in a plot to destabilize the country, according to Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.

The State Department has denied any U.S. involvement with a plot to overthrow Maduro. 

It remains unclear how many Americans are currently held in Venezuela following the significant prisoner swap in 2023 when Washington and Caracas negotiated the release of dozens of prisoners, including 10 Americans, in exchange for Colombian businessman Alex Saab, a close ally of Maduro.

Saab was arrested during the first Trump administration on charges related to a $350 million bribery scheme.