Senior Trump official travels to Venezuela to discuss migrants with Maduro

CARACAS, Venezuela — A senior Trump administration official traveled Friday to Venezuela to urge President Nicolás Maduro's government to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the United States and release a handful of imprisoned Americans.

The visit by Richard Grenell, who U.S. President Donald Trump appointed as an envoy for special missions, came as a shock to many Venezuelans who hoped that Trump would continue the ''maximum pressure'' campaign he pursued against the authoritarian Venezuelan leader during his first term.

Venezuelan state television aired footage of Grenell and Maduro speaking in the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, the capital, and said the meeting had been requested by the U.S. government.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump's special envoy to Latin America, previewed Grenell's visit to Caracas in a conference call with journalists on Friday. He said Grenell, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence during Trump's first term, was in Venezuela on a ''very specific mission'' that in no way detracts from the Trump administration's goal of restoring democracy in the South American nation.

''I would urge the Maduro government, the Maduro regime in Venezuela, to heed special envoy Ric Grenell's message,'' said Claver-Carone, himself a former top national security aide to Trump during his first administration. ''Ultimately there will be consequences otherwise.''

The visit comes less than a month after Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost last year's election by a more than 2-to-1 margin. The U.S. government, along with several other Western nations, does not recognize Maduro's claim to victory and instead point to tally sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its candidate, Edmundo González, won by a more than a two-to-one margin.

Some Republicans criticized the visit.

''This is terrible timing," said Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy to Venezuela and Iran during the first Trump administration. "A meeting with Maduro will be used by him to legitimize his rule and show that the Americans recognize him as president. If the purpose is to deliver a tough message about migration issues, the president could've done that himself. There was no need to send someone to Caracas.''

The dispute over the election results sparked nationwide protests. More than 2,200 people were arrested during and after the demonstrations.

Among those detained are as many as 10 Americans who the government has linked to alleged plots to destabilize the country. One is a Navy SEAL. However, none of the Americans has been declared wrongfully detained by the State Department, a designation that would give their cases more attention.

The Trump administration has taken a slew of actions to make good on promises to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.

Those measures include the revocation earlier this week of a Biden administration decision that would have protected roughly 600,000 people from Venezuela from deportation, putting some at risk of being removed from the country in about two months.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Friday that Trump had instructed Grenell to ''identify a place and ensure that repatriation flights" carrying Venezuelans, including members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, "land in Venezuela.'' She said Trump also ordered Grenell to ''ensure that all U.S. detainees in Venezuela are returned home.''

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2013, when its economy unraveled and Maduro first took office. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the pandemic, migrants increasingly set their sights on the U.S.

Venezuelans' desire for better living conditions and their rejection of Maduro and his policies are expected to keep pushing people to emigrate.

Ahead of the presidential election last year, a nationwide poll by Venezuela-based research firm Delphos showed about a quarter of the population thinking about emigrating if Maduro was re-elected.

Grenell has reached out to Maduro before on Trump's behalf to secure the release of imprisoned Americans only to come home empty handed.

In 2020, he traveled with Erik Prince, the founder of controversial security firm Blackwater, to Mexico City for a secret meeting with a top Maduro aide. The backchannel talks centered on Maduro's offer to swap eight Americans then imprisoned in Venezuela for businessman Alex Saab, a close ally of the president charged in the U.S. with money laundering, The Associated Press previously reported.

No deal was struck and Grenell's demand that Maduro step down was dismissed by the Venezuelan president's envoy. Grenell has always denied he was negotiating a hostage swap.

Later, in December 2023, the Biden administration exchanged Saab for 10 Americans as part of a policy to re-engage Maduro ahead of presidential elections.

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Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Washington.

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