President Bukele of El Salvador suggests exchanging prisoners with Venezuela in exchange for US-deported gang members

President Bukele of El Salvador urges Maduro to accept a “humanitarian deal” on X by offering to exchange 252 deported Venezuelans for political prisoners.

In a contentious prisoner exchange proposal to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has offered to return 252 Venezuelans who were recently deported by the US in return for the release of an equal number of political prisoners detained in Venezuela.

In a post on the social media site X, Bukele made the offer and referred to the action as a “humanitarian agreement.” According to him, the Venezuelan deportees had committed heinous crimes like rape and murder. Many of them are currently being detained in El Salvador’s high-security Terrorism Confinement Center.

Bukele countered that Maduro’s dictatorship, which has come under heavy international condemnation for alleged violations of human rights and a hotly contested reelection, is the only reason why political prisoners in Venezuela are being detained.

“I want to propose to you [Maduro] a humanitarian agreement that calls for the release of… the same number of Venezuelans from among the thousands of political prisoners that you hold, in exchange for the repatriation of 100% of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported,” Bukele wrote. In addition, he proposed an exchange with around 50 other foreigners, including Americans.

In reaction, Tarek William Saab, Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, questioned the legality of the detentions and denounced Bukele’s plan. Which offenses were these deportees accused of? He defended Venezuela’s assertion that government does not detain political prisoners, a claim that is strongly contested by international human rights organizations. “Were they granted access to legal counsel or a trial?” he questioned.

Under President Donald Trump’s administration, which has reinstituted strict immigration laws since taking office in January, the deportees in issue were transported from the United States to El Salvador. Many of the Venezuelans who were deported are accused by Washington of being members of the infamous Tren de Aragua crime organization. El Salvador has been compensated to hold them under a deal with the United States.

Maduro has denounced the deportations, calling them a “massive abuse” of human rights by the United States and “kidnapping.”

The rarely utilized 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which grants the president the power to remove citizens of enemy states without the usual legal safeguards, serves as the legal foundation for the US deportations. There are serious ethical and legal concerns because the act has only ever been invoked in times of war. The deportation of another batch of Venezuelan detainees was temporarily halted by the US Supreme Court on Saturday while additional legal examination was conducted.

President Bukele, who was just re-elected with excellent support ratings for his tough anti-gang policies, has half-jokingly called himself “the world’s coolest dictator.” His most recent offer is perhaps another audacious step in his increasingly prominent international political position.

Although Bukele’s offer of a prisoner swap has not received a formal response from Washington or Caracas, the proposal brings a fresh perspective to the current humanitarian and geopolitical discussion over immigration, gang violence, and political repression.