Caracas (AFP) – The Venezuelan government on Tuesday claimed that 66 Venezuelan children are being illegally held in the United States after being separated from their parents during deportation, as the White House cracks down on immigration.
Caracas is demanding the children be handed over to Venezuelan authorities so they can be repatriated.
"We have 66 children kidnapped in the United States. It's a number that grows each day... a cruel and inhumane policy," said Camila Fabri, president of the government's Return to the Homeland program that advocates for the voluntary return of people who left the country.
She spoke at a gathering at which women read out letters to US First Lady Melania Trump asking her to intercede on behalf of the children, who they said had been placed in foster care.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, the largest population exodus in Latin America's recent history, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
It blamed "rampant violence, inflation, gang-warfare, soaring crime rates as well as shortages of food, medicine and essential services."
In recent years Venezuelans in the United States had been granted temporary protected immigration status, allowing them to live and work there for a designated time period.
But President Donald Trump's administration revoked that protection as part of his aggressive campaign to deport millions of undocumented migrants from the United States.
The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment on the claim by Caracas.
To date, 21 stranded children have been returned to Venezuela, including a daughter of one of the 252 Venezuelans detained in Trump's immigration crackdown in March, who was accused without evidence of gang activity and deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison.
The men were freed in a prisoner swap in July and flown home to Venezuela, where four of them told AFP they suffered beatings, abuse and deprivation.
Fabri said that 10,631 Venezuelans have returned in 2025, both those deported frm the United States and others stranded in Mexico.
The White House has also squared off against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who faces federal drug trafficking charges, with the US placing a $50 million bounty on him.
Washington, which does not recognize Maduro's past two election victories, accuses the South American country's leader of leading a cocaine trafficking gang, and has launched anti-drug operations in the Caribbean.
On Monday Maduro said he would deploy millions of militia members in the country in response to the US "threats."