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Maikelys Espinoza, a two-year-old child detained in the US

Calls have been made for the return to Venezuela of a two-year-old girl currently being held in the US, after being separated from her family by immigration officials, reports SUSAN GREY

Demonstrators hold up signs with the image of Maikelys Espinoza, a 2-year-old in US custody whose parents were deported separately, at a rally in Caracas, Venezuela, May 1, 2025

MAIKELYS ANTONELLA ESPINOZA BERNAL ESPINOZA arrived in Texas in May 2024 with her parents, Yorely Bernal Inciarte and Maiker Espinoza Escalona, who presented themselves to border authorities requesting asylum, a right protected under US and international law. The family was separated by officials, with the baby daughter put into foster care and the parents held in different detention facilities in Texas, with limited opportunities to communicate with one another.

After seeing no progress in their asylum request, Maikelys’s parents eventually requested deportation, to be reunited with their daughter. However, the child’s father, Maiker Escalona, was sent first to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on March 29 2025, and the following day was moved to the notorious high security Terrorism Confinement Centre (Cecot) in El Salvador.

The prison, which can hold up to 40,000 inmates, was built to hold local criminal gangs, but is also where US President Trump has paid the government of El Salvador to hold hundreds of Venezuelans deported without due process. Maikelys’s mother, Yorly Inciarte, was deported to Venezuela in April 2025 without her child, despite apparently being told her child would be released with her.

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