By Susan Grey, Venezuela Soldarity Campaign
Calls have been made for the return to Venezuela of a two year old girl currently being held in the United States, after being separated from her family by immigration officials.
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’ 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 29th March 2025 and the following day was moved to the notorious high security Terrorism Confinement Center (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’ mother, Yorly Inciarte was deported to Venezuela in April 2025 without her child, despite apparently being told her child would be released with her.
Over the last year Maikelys, who was born in Venezuela, has been moved through three different foster homes in the US, including one that had to be changed due to allegations of sexual abuse.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have stated that Maikelys is in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), whose stated mission is to is to promote the health, well-being, and stability of refugees, unaccompanied alien children, and other eligible individuals and families. They claim the child’s detention is for her own protection.
Maikelys’ parents have no criminal record in Venezuela or elsewhere, and there have been no trials or other judicial proceedings against them in the U.S. other than the federal case against Inciarta for improper entry, to which she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time served plus one day. Nevertheless the DHS alleges, without providing evidence, that both parents have links to the criminal gang Tren de Aragua.
Both parents have tattoos. Inciarte’s mother reports that her daughter has tattoos of the dates her parents were born, as well as an image of flowers and the name of her son. It is possible that the allegations against the couple are rooted in discriminatory profiling, based on their tattoos.
Maiker Escalona is described by his sister Marly as “a dreamer, like all Venezuelans” who wanted a better life. He finished high school and opened a barbershop in Venezuela. But life in sanctioned Venezuela became difficult and he and Inciarte moved first to Peru, then the USA, hoping to start a new life with their baby. Those hopes have come to nothing as the family are now separated and the parents have not seen their daughter for year.
The Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) has ordered the “immediate return” of Maikelys Espinoza, stating that the child is being illegally held in the United States and kept away from her family. For this reason, it issued a protective measure in her favour seeking her reunification with her mother.
President Maduro made Maikelys’s detention the focus of the country’s International Workers Day rally and has called for her to be released and returned to Venezuela to be cared for by her mother and grandmother, citing the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child: ‘the right to life, survival, and development; to identity; to live in a family; to equality and non-discrimination; to education; to health; to recreation and leisure; and to protection from abuse, exploitation, and violence.’