The Japan Times - El Salvador's president proposes prisoner exchange with Venezuela

"I want to propose to you a humanitarian agreement calling for the repatriation of 100 percent of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and handing over of an identical number from among the thousands of political prisoners that you hold," Bukele wrote on X.

The Salvadoran leader, who was hosted at the White House last week, said that "all the Venezuelans we have in custody were detained as part of an operation against gangs like Tren de Aragua in the United States."

In little more than a month, 288 migrants accused by the Trump administration of belonging to gangs including Tren de Aragua -- now defined as a terrorist organization by Washington -- have been shipped to El Salvador.

The US is paying Bukele's government to imprison them in the country's notorious CECOT prison outside capital San Salvador.

The Trump administration has clashed with judges at home who have ordered halts to the deportations.

Most recently, the Supreme Court on Saturday ordered a pause in removals under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act (AEA) designed for use in wartime.

The policy and the administration's hostile responses to the court rulings are fueling opposition concerns that Trump is ignoring the US constitution in a broader bid to amass power.

Bukele claimed Sunday that many of the Venezuelan detainees now in his country "have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some had even been arrested multiple times before being deported."

"Unlike our detainees... your political prisoners have not committed any crime. The only reason they are imprisoned is because they have opposed you and your electoral frauds," he wrote.

Bukele added that he was seeking the release of prominent Venezuelans such as Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of Maduro's 2024 presidential challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, journalist Roland Carreno, activist lawyer Rocio San Miguel and opponents who have holed up for more than a year in Argentina's Caracas embassy.

He also cited 50 citizens of other nations, among them Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners and Latin Americans.

H.Hayashi--JT