FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez looks on before speaking at a press conference, in Caracas, Venezuela, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/File Photo
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans deported over the weekend to El Salvador by the United States have been denied due process, the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, said on Monday.
Speaking at a press conference, Rodriguez said the people deported were not known to have committed any crimes in the United States or El Salvador, and that Venezuela would do everything it can to have themreturnedhome. The Trump administration says those deported belong to the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has been linked to kidnapping, extortion and contract killings.
The Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act's wartime powers to rapidly deport more than 200 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang from the U.S. over the weekend despite a court order forbidding it to do so.
Rodriguez also said that he will ask the government of President Nicolas Maduro to issue a warning for Venezuelans not to travel to the United States, saying it was not a safe place, and he urged Venezuelans who have migrated there to return.
"We will do everything we have to do so that our compatriots will return home, we will send all the planes we have to send to any part of the world," he said.
Of the more than 600 migrants who have been returned to Venezuela from the United States and Mexico on deportation flights since February, just 16 were facing some sort of judicial process and none were members of the Tren de Aragua, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said on state television.
Maduro's government has long been accused by the political opposition of arbitrary arrests and detentions of opponents.
The government regularly accuses the opposition of conspiring with foreign entities like the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to plan attacks on Venezuela, which the opposition and U.S. have always denied.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this month that there are nine wrongfully detained Americans in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has previously accused some Americans of involvement in terrorist plots.
(Reporting by Vivian Sequera; Writing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Sandra Maler and Rosalba O'Brien)
