Cliff Notes – Toddler reunited with deported mother in Venezuela
- Maikelys Espinoza, a two-year-old, was reunited with her mother, Yorelys Bernel, in Caracas after being among 220 migrants deported from the US amid ongoing mass deportations by the Trump administration.
- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro praised the child’s return as a “profoundly humane” act, thanking Donald Trump and his envoy, despite the historically antagonistic relations between the two nations.
- The case highlights serious allegations from the Trump administration against the child’s parents, but lack of substantial evidence has raised concerns over the basis for their deportation.
Toddler reunited with deported mother in Venezuela
Maikelys Espinoza, a two-year-old child, was reunited with her mother in Caracas, Venezuela, on Wednesday. Espinoza was one of 220 migrants on a flight from the US to Venezuela as the Donald Trump administration continues to carry out mass deportations.
Video aired on Venezuelan state TV showed the child first in the arms of First Lady Cilia Flores — who greeted the plane at Caracas’ Simon Bolivar International Airport while the child’s mother, Yorelys Bernel, waited at the Palacio de Miraflores presidential palace with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
“Here is everyone’s beloved little girl. She is the daughter and granddaughter of all of us,” said President Maduro when the child arrived at Miraflores.
On Wednesday, Maduro, who has had an antagonistic relationship with US leaders, thanked Trump for making the girl’s return possible, calling it a “profoundly humane” act. Maduro also thanked Trump’s special envoy Rick Grenell, who visited Maduro for talks shortly after Trump was sworn in.
“There have been and will [continue to] be differences,” said Maduro, “but it is possible, with God’s blessing, to move forward and resolve many issues.”
“I hope and aspire,” he added, “that very soon we can also rescue Maikely’s father and the 253 Venezuelans who are in El Salvador.”
White House again fails to offer evidence to back questionable claims about deportees
The child’s separation from her parents was decried in Venezuela, with angered citizens denouncing it as an “abduction.” Still, she is just one of several to suffer a similar fate as the Trump administration continues its crusade against illegal immigration.
She was originally given to a foster care program after her parents turned themselves in to police in the US for having entered the US illegally in May 2024.
The Trump administration has claimed both parents are members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
The fact that the two have tattoos was submitted as grounds for deportation by the Trump administration, though White House officials offered no serious evidence to back its claim that Maikelys’ father, Maiker Espinoza-Escalona, was a Tren de Aragua “lieutenant” who presided over “homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion and sex trafficking,” nor that he “operates a torture house.” Neither did it provide evidence to substantiate claims that the mother oversaw the recruitment of young prostitutes and drug smugglers, as government prosecutors assert.
Trump designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization earlier this year and has used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as justification for carrying out mass deportations since returning to office.
Yorelys Bernel was deported to Venezuela on April 25 after the child’s father was reportedly sent off to CECOT maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March.
The Trump administration has deported more than 4,000 migrants back to Venezuela alone since returning to office.
Caracas had previously refused to take in Venezuelans deported from the US, though it recently even agreed to take back nearly 200 individuals who had been sent to Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador.
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