Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro celebrated on Wednesday the scheduled return of two-year-old Venezuelan Maikelys Espinoza as a “victory” for his regime after spending weeks falsely claiming that the child had been “kidnapped” by the United States.
Maikelys Espinoza is a Venezuelan child the Maduro regime accused the United States of “kidnapping” after her parents, both Tren de Aragua members who illegally entered the United States, were deported in recent weeks. Maduro and members of his authoritarian socialist regime have pursued a new anti-U.S. narrative that the deportations of illegal Venezuelan migrants are “kidnappings,” placing the child’s circumstances at the forefront of the narrative.
Similarly, the Maduro regime has claimed that the deportation of Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act is comparable to the persecution of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany and their imprisonment and mass murder in concentration camps. Roughly 250 Venezuelan illegal migrants suspected of being Tren de Aragua members are presently detained in El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison as per the terms of an agreement between Presidents Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele.
Contrary to the Maduro regime’s “kidnapping” claims, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explained in late April that the child was placed under foster care in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after DHS found evidence that both her parents were members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) foreign terrorist organization. Both parents had final orders of removal from a judge.
The child’s mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal, is accused of overseeing the recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution, and was deported to Venezuela. The father, Maiker Espinoza-Escalona, is a suspected Tren De Aragua lieutenant accused of overseeing homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, and sex trafficking and operating a torture house. Espinoza-Escalona is presently detained in El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison alongside some 250 suspected Tren de Aragua members.
DHS further explained on Wednesday that the two-year-old was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement for 302 days and was not deported alongside her TdA-affiliated mother for her own safety.
“The child in question was repatriated to Venezuela pursuant to a court order. ICE defers to the government of Venezuela to advise if the child is with the mother or in government custody,” DHS explained, “but at least we know the child will not be with her TDA father who operated a torture house and oversaw homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, and sex trafficking for the criminal gang.”
“Thanks to President Trump, this terrorist gang member is locked up in CECOT,” the agency stated.
The child arrived at Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar International Airport alongside another 225 Venezuelan deportees and was received by Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. a wanted accused drug lord.
The child was immediately transported to the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, where dictator Maduro hosted a reunion between the child, her previously deported mother, and her grandmother. VTV, the regime’s main propaganda outlet, claimed that the child was “rescued” by Maduro. Maduro was also accompanied by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Alex Saab, accused of being the dictator’s top money launderer and financial brain, who was released by former U.S. President Joe Biden in December 2023 while he was on trial in the United States.
“Here is the beloved child of all, she is the daughter and granddaughter of all of us,” Maduro said, claiming the repatriation of the minor child as a “victory” of the Venezuelan people. “I aspire and hope that very soon we will also be able to rescue Maikelys’ father and the 253 Venezuelans who are in El Salvador very soon.”
Maduro, who acknowledged that he has “differences” with President Trump, thanked him and Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell for the return of the child and said that “it is possible, with the blessing of God the father, to move forward and resolve many issues.”
“On a day where you feel it’s all worthwhile, to thank so many efforts, I have to thank in fairness Ambassador Ric Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy, for his efforts, and with Ambassador Ric Grenell, to thank President Donald Trump as well,” Maduro said.
“This human victory of having this beautiful girl among us belongs to all the people of Venezuela but, above all, to the mothers and grandmothers,” he added.
The United Nations estimates that about 7.9 million Venezuelans have so far fled from the socialist Maduro regime — a number that represents roughly a quarter of Venezuela’s estimated 31.25 million inhabitants as of 2024. Maduro on Wednesday once again called upon Venezuelan migrants to return to their country.
“Come, do not believe in false homelands and illusions of the American dream, come to Venezuela everyone, we love you here,” Maduro said. “Here we manage and resolve among all of us and we build the only homeland we have, ‘fatherland, motherland Venezuela,’ this home, the home where our ancestors and our hopes are.”
Maduro publicly vowed in March that he would “not rest” until he “rescues” the Tren de Aragua members detained in El Salvador. In April, President Nayib Bukele formally presented an offer to the Maduro regime that involved sending 252 of the Venezuelan deportees back to Venezuela in exchange for the release of 252 of Maduro’s nearly 900 political prisoners, among whom are Americans, Italians, Argentines, an Israeli, and foreigners from some 20 other nations who remain unjustly detained in Venezuela. The Maduro regime formally rejected the proposal and accused Bukele of engaging in “Nazism.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
