On Thursday (15), Venezuelans took to the streets to celebrate. Although in an electoral context, the mobilization was not to support candidates or ask for votes. The demonstrators occupied the center of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, to celebrate the return to the country of 2-year-old Maikelys Espinoza.
She returned on Wednesday on a flight with six other children who were in the United States. The Venezuelan government called the US government’s treatment of Maikelys a “kidnapping”. According to Caracas, the child’s parents are Venezuelan citizens, lived in the US and were deported under Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, accused of being part of the criminal group known as Tren de Aragua.
She was then placed under the responsibility of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Minister of Interior, Diosdado Cabello, welcomed the child at the airport. He has been responsible for receiving Venezuelans deported from the US. At a press conference, the minister said the child’s family weren’t at the airport because Washington hadn’t confirmed it would send the baby girl.
“As we weren’t sure if the girl would be on this flight, we didn’t want her mother and grandmother to come so that they wouldn’t suffer any more sadness. But you know that Maikelys has arrived. We’ve put her in a place, and we’re going to take her to them [her family] so that they can bless her with love, just as all the children in Venezuela are blessed. We fight a daily battle, and today is a great victory for Maikelys to return to our homeland,” he said.
Maikelys arrived in Venezuela all dressed in white and was taken to Miraflores Palace, the seat of the Venezuelan government. There, First Lady Cilia Flores handed the girl over to her mother, Yorely Bernal, and her grandmother, María Escalona Fernández.
The emotion was televised nationally and the meeting between President Nicolás Maduro and the baby’s family marked another chapter in the troubled relationship between Donald Trump’s government and Venezuela. Despite US pressure and the massive deportation of Venezuelans under adverse conditions, Maduro thanked the Republican president for sending Maikelys.
He also thanked the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, for negotiating with the White House. He has been one of Caracas’ main representatives in the relationship with the US government since Joe Biden’s administration.
“There have been and will be differences. But it is possible, with the blessing of God, to move forward and resolve many issues. I hope and aspire that, very soon, we will also manage to rescue Maikelys’ father and the other 253 Venezuelans who are still in El Salvador. 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 said.
The child’s parents are Venezuelan and met in Peru, where they lived. There, they had the baby girl and went to the United States to start a new life. They arrived in the US on May 22, 2024, but did not try to cross the border illegally. They admitted to US courts that they had no documentation to enter the country.
Since then, they have been stuck in migration. Even so, the US accuses the two of being part of the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua.
The child’s mother is Yorely Bernal Inciarte. The DHS claims that she was responsible for overseeing “the recruitment of young women for drug trafficking and prostitution.” However, the agency does not provide any evidence to back up the claim and only states that she was “accused” of being part of the criminal organization. She was deported to Venezuela in early 2025 under Trump’s deportation policy.
According to the US government, the girl’s father, Maiker Espinoza Escalona, is accused of being a “lieutenant” of Tren de Aragua and of being responsible for “murders, drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking”, as well as managing a “torture house”. He was taken with 251 other Venezuelans to the maximum-security prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot, in Spanish), in El Salvador.
The Central American country received Venezuelan deportees who were in the US, all accused of being part of the group. The DHS confirmed the decision and said that the couple was detained to “protect” the child.
Washington said that the return of Maikelys was not the result of negotiation by the Maduro government, but of a judicial decision.
“The girl in question has been repatriated to Venezuela by court order. ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is leaving it up to the Venezuelan government to determine whether the girl is with her mother or under government custody but at least we know she won’t be with her father, a member of the Aragua Train, which ran a torture house and oversaw murders, drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion and sex trafficking for the criminal gang,” DHS said in a social media post.
March of joy
Thousands of Venezuelans went to the center of Caracas to celebrate Maikely’s return. The case gained national attention at the end of April. Demonstrators carried placards saying “We want our young people back”, pointing out that there are still 252 Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador and other children separated from their parents in the US.
Maria Fernandez is Maikelys’ aunt and Maiker Espinoza Escalona’s sister. According to her, the return of the child is a victory for the family, but the return of her brother, who is “unjustly imprisoned” in El Salvador, is still to happen.
“They were forcibly separated and the child stayed in a shelter. No one was told where she was. Her parents could see each other, but they couldn’t speak to each other. That was the only communication they had. Then he was taken to another detention center. We urgently need him back. It’s not fair what they did to him, a hard worker,” she told BdF.
She took part in the march in the Venezuelan capital on Thursday (15) and thanked the Venezuelan government for helping, which she said was fundamental to the operation. Maduro also gave a speech and said he was committed to the return of other Venezuelans.
“Today, more than ever, the Venezuelan family is stronger, working harder, overcoming the economic war. Those who wanted to separate the Venezuelan family, those who persecuted it, were from the extreme right, but we stand still, strong, always defending and protecting the family. We are committed to reuniting the Venezuelan families that have been separated,” he said.
Mass deportations
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump announced an anti-immigration policy aimed at expelling so-called illegal migrants from the US. To deport Venezuelans to El Salvador, Trump used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming that they belonged to the Tren de Aragua, without providing proof. Maduro questioned the deportees’ lack of defense rights.
In April, El Salvador proposed to exchange 252 Venezuelan prisoners for 252 Salvadoran prisoners, but Venezuela rejected the proposal. The US Supreme Court suspended the deportations after a request from the ACLU, which is suing the government over the deportations. The White House agreed to suspend the deportations, but called for an end to the suspension.
A federal court has prevented the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelans. In March, Caracas resumed receiving deportees from the US after an agreement with Richard Grenell. After a disagreement over Chevron’s license, Venezuela suspended deportations, but the two governments later resumed the agreement.
