El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele doubled down Tuesday on his proposal to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro: release 252 political prisoners—including Venezuelans and foreign nationals—in exchange for 252 Venezuelan deportees detained in El Salvador for alleged ties to the Tren de Aragua terrorist group.
Bukele originally made the offer Sunday, calling it a humanitarian exchange. He included in the proposal the release of Americans, Italians, Israelis, and other nationals detained under Maduro’s regime. The 252 Venezuelans are currently imprisoned at El Salvador’s high-security CECOT Terrorism Confinement Center and are being prosecuted for links to organized crime.
Maduro, who previously accused Bukele of “kidnapping” the deportees, rejected the exchange and lashed out, calling the Salvadoran president a practitioner of “Nazism.” Bukele fired back on social media, citing Maduro’s own 2023 prisoner swap with the Biden administration, where Maduro exchanged 30 political prisoners for one man: Alex Saab, his top financial operative.
“You thought a 30-for-1 exchange was fair, but now you reject a fair proposal of 1-for-1?” Bukele wrote, calling out Maduro for hypocrisy and a lack of consistency. Bukele formally submitted the proposal through his Foreign Ministry and challenged Maduro to respond honestly to the Venezuelan people and the international community.
Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yvan Gil officially rejected the offer in a written response, calling the proposal “illegal and morally inadmissible.” Gil accused El Salvador of violating the deportees’ human rights and due process and labeled the political prisoners in Venezuela as criminals convicted of “terrible punishable acts.”
The Maduro regime has equated the deportation of illegal Venezuelan migrants under President Donald Trump’s revived use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act with Nazi-era crimes. Bukele dismissed those claims and accused Maduro of staging propaganda while refusing a legitimate opportunity to free political prisoners.
With tensions rising and international scrutiny mounting, the exchange proposal exposes the deep divide between Latin America’s authoritarian and law-and-order governments—and the stark contrast in their treatment of criminal migrants and dissidents.
