We are glad 10 Americans and U.S. permanent residents held captive in Venezuela have been freed. It’s a welcome outcome after months of negotiations between the Trump administration and Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

For the families of these unjustly imprisoned people, it is the end of a nightmare.

Another nightmare of sorts also came to an end. In exchange, about 250 Venezuelans held in a Salvadoran prison known as CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, also have been freed.

On one level, this is a victory for President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a low-cost, high-gain deal for the administration. They got rid of a group of Venezuelans accused, some without evidence, of being dangerous criminals, and they brought back a group of Americans, some basically kidnapped, by the most ruthless dictatorship in Latin America. As a deterrence, it will make Venezuelans think twice about coming to the U.S. illegally.

The short-term victory, however, may have long-term consequences. There is a deeper principle that has been lost. Democracies live by the rule of law and due process, and what led up to this exchange did not follow those principles.

Prisoner exchanges between the U.S. and rogue nations, like Russia, are always controversial. In 2022, we exchanged a notorious arms dealer, Viktor Bout, for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was an innocent pawn. Bout was one of the most dangerous men in the world. In 2023, the Biden administration also traded for Colombian Alex Saab, known to be Maduro’s fixer, a man indicted in the U.S. and charged with a money laundering scheme. In both cases, the U.S. was trading bad people who had the benefit of due process.

The Americans held in Venezuela got no due process. But it’s also true that the Venezuelans sent to CECOT got no due process. They were accused of being members of criminal gang Tren de Aragua, but the administration provided little evidence, and most reporting suggests only a fraction of the detained had a criminal past.

In a democracy, even your bargaining chips have gone through the legal system. Using the Venezuelans in El Salvador the way we did risks treating people as pawns. That’s not how America is supposed to operate.

Some of the Venezuelans in their country were supposed to have some protection under U.S. law, including Temporary Protected Status. While some had criminal backgrounds, and others were economic migrants, there were also those who had actively opposed Maduro. There are no guarantees they will remain free of harm.

The Trump administration is getting something important: Ten people have come home, and the Maduro regime has lost a potent bargaining chip against the U.S.

But the long-term cost of this deal may haunt our country in years to come.

— From Tribune News Service