AP :
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.
