By REGINA GARCIA CANO and JUAN ARRAEZ, Related Press
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — María Alejandra Rubio hasn’t seen her son in 5 months. They have been separated in the USA when she was detained to be deported to her native Venezuela and he was despatched to reside with a household good friend.
Rubio says U.S. immigration authorities led her to consider she would board a airplane to Venezuela along with her 8-year-old son, Anyerson. However she made the hourslong journey final month with out him.
Heartbroken, Rubio is now a part of a bunch of Venezuelan moms and grandmothers interesting to U.S. first woman Melania Trump to assist them see their youngsters and grandchildren once more. Members of the group, backed by Venezuela’s authorities, say they despatched Trump a letter looking for her help final month.
“He tells me, ‘Mother, I wish to be with you. I wish to return to my nation with you,’” Rubio stated of her calls with Anyerson, who’s in Georgia. “So, I would love the primary woman to place her hand on her coronary heart and reply our letter.”
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Married couple Syntia Caceres and Jose Martinez pose for images sporting T-shirts with a photograph of Aurore, Syntia’s four-year-old granddaughter who was positioned in foster care in Georgia state after her father, Caceres’ son, was detained in July, at their house in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, 4, 2025. (AP Picture/Ariana Cubillos)
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Married couple Syntia Caceres and Jose Martinez pose for images sporting T-shirts with a photograph of Aurore, Syntia’s four-year-old granddaughter who was positioned in foster care in Georgia state after her father, Caceres’ son, was detained in July, at their house in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, 4, 2025. (AP Picture/Ariana Cubillos)
Trump’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request from The Related Press looking for touch upon the letter. Venezuela’s authorities on Thursday instructed the AP the letter, dated Aug. 18, was despatched to the White Home by way of a personal mail supply service.
“We ask you as moms to lift our voices, to assist our youngsters return to their houses, to be a bridge to the justice and humanity that you just your self name for,” members of the group wrote in Spanish, based on a replica of the letter shared with the AP. “We ask you to hearken to the cries of households, to cease this separation coverage from persevering with, to easily deport moms together with their youngsters.”
Venezuelans are being steadily deported to their house nation this 12 months after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, below stress from the White Home, did away along with his long-standing coverage of not accepting deportees from the U.S. Immigrants now arrive recurrently on the airport exterior the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by a U.S. authorities contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline.
Maduro’s authorities has stated greater than 10,000 migrants, together with youngsters, had returned to the South American nation as of mid-August. However not all mother and father have traveled with their youngsters.
Among the many minors separated from their mother and father was 2-year-old Maikelys Espinoza. She remained within the U.S. after her mom was deported to Venezuela and her father was despatched to a maximum-security jail in El Salvador below President Donald Trump’s invocation of an 18th-century wartime legislation to swiftly deport lots of of immigrants.
The U.S. authorities stated Maikelys’ separation was justified as a result of U.S. authorities had linked her mother and father to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, which the Republican president designated a terrorist group. The woman reunited along with her mom in mid-Could in Venezuela and along with her father in July, when he was launched from the Salvadoran jail.
Maduro publicly thanked President Trump after Maikelys arrived in Venezuela. The U.S. doesn’t acknowledge Maduro as Venezuela’s president, nevertheless it has negotiated numerous actions along with his authorities this 12 months, together with the discharge of a number of People detained within the South American nation. The U.S. authorities, nonetheless, has stated the return of minors to Venezuela may take time.
“In contrast to the illegitimate Maduro regime, the USA doesn’t use youngsters as bargaining chips, and we is not going to be rushed to maneuver unaccompanied minors earlier than completely assessing what’s of their greatest curiosity,” the State Division’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs posted on X on Aug. 8.
Like Venezuelan authorities officers, moms and grandmothers who signed the letter looking for the return of kids to their house nation are characterizing their keep within the U.S. as kidnappings.
“You not having contact along with your youngster, you not realizing the place your youngster is, is a kidnapping. We don’t know the place she is,” Syntia Cáceres stated Thursday, referring to her granddaughter Aurore, who’s 4.
Cáceres stated her grandchild was positioned in foster care in Georgia after her son was detained in July. She stated the household caring for Aurore allowed her to talk with the woman as soon as final month however later instructed her that youngster protecting companies instructed the household to finish any contact with the grandmother.
Cáceres now needs to verify her son and granddaughter are deported collectively when the time comes.
“In the event that they’re going to deport folks, it doesn’t matter, however they need to deport them with their youngsters,” she stated. “If (President Trump) doesn’t need us there in his nation, it doesn’t matter, high quality. Deport us, ship us again, however all collectively.”
Garcia Cano reported from Mexico Metropolis. Related Press author Michelle L. Worth contributed to this report from Washington.
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