Donald Trump says that Venezuela “accepted” receiving deportees, including members of the Aragua train

The President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Venezuela agreed to receive illegal immigrants deported by USAincluding criminal gang members Aragua train.

“Venezuela agreed to receive all Venezuelan immigrants in his country in his country arrested in Venezuela.

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“Venezuela also agreed to provide return transport,” Trump added.

The detainees were released on Friday and returned to the United States after a meeting between Trump’s special envoy, Richard Grenelll, and Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, who requested a “new beginning” in relations with Washington.

The six men, who were not identified, were photographed smiling on a plane next to Grenell.

Grenelll had traveled to Caracas to demand that the Maduro government accept the unconditional return of deported Venezuelans in the United States or face the consequences.

“We are in the process of expelling a record number of illegal foreigners from all countries, and all those nations accepted the return of these illegal foreigners,” said the Republican tycoon.

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“New Home”

Maduro advocated a “new start” in Venezuela’s relations with the United States, broken since 2019, so that what “we have to rectify is rectified” and what “has to be done is done.”

The self -proclaimed president raised Grenell what he called as a “zero agenda” to rebuild bridges, in the middle of a renewed political crisis for Washington’s questions to his re -election on July 28 of last year, denounced by the opposition as a fraud .

“I can say that – the meeting – it was positive (…) there are issues where we have reached first agreements and as new issues will be opened, hopefully, for new agreements,” Maduro said during a speech at the opening of the year judicial.

“We tell President Donald Trump: we have taken a first step. Hopefully it can be sustained, we want to hold it,” added the president, pointing out that on Saturday more details of the meeting will be informed.

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Formally, Washington does not know the re -election of Maduro For a third mandate (2025-2031) and the head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, expressed support to the exiled Edmundo González Urrutia, who claims a triumph in the presidential elections.

The government of Democrat Joe Biden also did not recognize Maduro, but undertook direct negotiations Caracas-Washington.

AFP

The contacts led, for example, to the liberation in the United States of Alex Saab – Colombian company accused of being “Testaferro” of the president and now one of his ministers – in exchange for 10 US prisoners and about twenty Venezuelans at the end of 2023.

The special envoy of the United States for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, commented earlier at a press conference that the meeting between Grenelll and Maduro “does not change” Washington’s priorities “with respect to Venezuela.”

The same day of his investiture, Trump said that the United States “probably” would stop buying oil from Venezuela.

Several Republican congressmen ask to cancel licenses that allow oil companies such as the American Chevron, the Spanish Repsol or the French Maurel & Prom to operate in the Caribbean country, despite the oil embargo that the US ruler imposed in his first mandate (2017-2021) in A battery of sanctions that without success the fall of Maduro.

Repatrices

Claver-Carone said Grenell would demand Maduro to accept the conditions for the repatriation of “Venezuelan criminals and gang members.” The dreaded band of Aragua operates in the United States and Trump, on their return to power, declared it terrorist organization.

“President Trump expects Nicolás Maduro to recover all Venezuelan criminals and gang members” and “to do it unequivocally and without conditions,” said the official, who warned that “otherwise there will be consequences”, because “it is not a negotiation in exchange for something. “

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The Republican government has not only considered “criminals” to groups of groups such as the Aragua Train, but also to any migrant who has entered the United States irregular.

His deportation policy wakes up suspicion in the region and even caused serious diplomatic differences with Colombia, which he usually receives deportees, but refused to receive a military flight for transporting to spokesman.

Juan Barreto/AFP

The Trump administration has launched raids in several cities and eliminated roads established by Biden that allowed legal entry and asylum application. Among them he revoked this week the extension of a migratory protection known as TPS, which protected more than 600,000 Venezuelans.

The situation in Venezuela will be one of the themes that Marco Rubio will address on a tour that will begin on Saturday by Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Claver-Carone said that these countries are “allies” to condemn “the stolen elections” by Maduro.