President Trump told reporters Tuesday that he intends to secure the release of all political prisoners still held by Venezuela's ruling socialist government, a direct challenge to a regime that insists, against overwhelming evidence, that it holds no political detainees at all.
"We're going to get them all out," Trump said before departing for China. "As you know, we've already freed many political prisoners, and the rest will be released too."
The pledge lands at a moment when the Venezuelan human-rights group Foro Penal, whose data is regularly cited by the Organization of American States and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, still counts 457 confirmed political prisoners inside the country. Of those, 293 have never been convicted of anything. Forty-two are foreigners or Venezuelans holding dual citizenship. The full roster includes 414 men and 43 women, as Breitbart reported.
On the same Tuesday Trump made his remarks, Venezuelan lawmaker and former Penitentiary Services Minister Iris Valera went on VTV, the regime's flagship television channel, and flatly denied reality.
"There are no political prisoners in Venezuela. No one is imprisoned for holding different views in Venezuela. It is a different matter if they are politicians who have committed a crime."
Valera then added a revealing qualifier:
"And crimes can be forgiven, because crimes are forgiven. That is what amnesty laws are for: to forgive crimes."
The contradiction is plain. You cannot simultaneously claim there are zero political prisoners and boast about an amnesty law designed to release them. Yet that is exactly the posture the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has adopted. The party expeditiously approved a purported "amnesty law" in February, and regime members publicly claimed that "over 8,600" individuals benefited from it.
If no one was imprisoned for political reasons, whom did the amnesty forgive?
Foro Penal's broader data tells a grim story stretching back more than a decade. The NGO this month reported 19,092 documented instances of political detentions since 2014, nearly three decades into the socialist regime's grip on power.
By the end of 2025, the group had confirmed 857 political prisoners. That number has since dropped to 457, partly because of releases tied to the regime's collaboration with the United States following the January 3 arrest of Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas.
But the drop also masks darker outcomes. Víctor Hugo Quero Navas was detained in early January 2025. The regime eventually admitted he had died in state custody, attributing his death to "acute respiratory failure secondary to pulmonary thromboembolism." His body was buried on July 30, 2025.
His mother, Carmen Teresa Navas, is 82 years old. She spent 16 months searching through Venezuelan prisons looking for her missing son, only to learn the state had already buried him.
Quero Navas is not the only case that haunts the families left behind. Beatriz de Marino, 83, spoke with the Venezuelan outlet El Pitazo last week to denounce that since 2019 she has had no information on the whereabouts of her son, Hugo Marino. A maritime rescue expert and Venezuelan-Italian dual national, Marino was reportedly arrested in April 2019 by members of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM). He was last seen disembarking from an international flight, seeking to spend time with his family in Venezuela.
Six years later, his mother still does not know if he is alive.
Trump's pledge Tuesday built on actions already underway. After the January 3 operation that removed Maduro from power, the regime, now under acting President Delcy Rodriguez, began collaborating with the United States and releasing some prisoners.
Fox News reported that Trump said Saturday Venezuela had started releasing political prisoners following the U.S. operation, which it identified as "Operation Absolute Resolve." The operation resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were brought to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges. Reuters, as cited by Fox News, reported that at least 18 political prisoners had been released as of Saturday.
"Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners," Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added: "Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done."
Trump has not shied from confrontation in recent days. Before boarding his flight to China, he sparred with reporters on the White House lawn on a range of topics, displaying the same combative posture he brought to the Venezuela question.
Just The News reported that Trump framed the prisoner releases as a goodwill gesture from Caracas, calling them "a very important and smart gesture." The outlet noted that Trump said he had canceled a previously expected second wave of attacks because of Venezuela's cooperation, though U.S. naval forces would remain in place. The U.S. Navy continues a maritime blockade and seizures tied to Venezuelan oil and suspected drug trafficking, part of broader pressure to push Caracas toward a pro-American stance.
The regime's February amnesty law was supposed to demonstrate good faith. But the numbers tell a different story. Even after the regime claimed more than 8,600 people benefited from the law, Foro Penal still counts 457 political prisoners in detention. Hundreds remain behind bars without convictions.
The law's passage itself raises questions. The PSUV approved it with unusual speed, a party that spent years denying political prisoners existed suddenly found it necessary to pass legislation forgiving crimes it claimed were never committed.
Trump's exercise of executive authority on the Venezuela file mirrors his willingness to act decisively in other arenas. The Senate has repeatedly rejected attempts to limit his war powers, and the administration has shown little hesitation in using military and economic leverage abroad.
The question now is whether the remaining 457 prisoners, and potentially others Foro Penal has not yet documented, will actually walk free. The regime's track record offers little comfort. A government that hid Quero Navas's death from his 82-year-old mother for months, that has kept Hugo Marino's family in the dark for six years, is not a government that releases prisoners out of goodwill.
It releases them when the cost of holding them becomes higher than the cost of letting them go.
Several questions hang over the situation. The exact mechanism by which the United States will compel further releases remains unclear. Trump has spoken in broad terms, "we're going to get them all out", but the operational details have not been disclosed publicly.
The identities of the 42 foreign nationals or dual citizens among the 457 prisoners are not fully known. Whether any are American citizens or legal residents has not been confirmed in available reporting. And the circumstances surrounding Quero Navas's death, beyond the regime's clinical one-line explanation, remain murky.
The broader question of Venezuela's political transition also looms. With Maduro in U.S. custody facing drug trafficking charges and Rodriguez serving as acting president, the country's future governance is far from settled. Trump has shown a preference for keeping contingency plans close, and the Venezuela situation may demand exactly that kind of flexibility.
For now, the administration's leverage appears strong. The naval blockade continues. Maduro sits in a U.S. courtroom. And the regime in Caracas has, for the first time in years, found reason to open prison doors rather than lock them.
Whether all 457 doors open, and how many more the regime has hidden, will determine whether Trump's promise was a negotiating position or a guarantee. He has shown little patience for half-measures from those he pressures, and the Venezuelan regime would be wise to take that seriously.
Carmen Teresa Navas buried her son after 16 months of searching. Beatriz de Marino hasn't heard from hers in six years. The regime that did this to them now says it holds no political prisoners. The world knows better, and so, evidently, does the president.
