Venezuelan mothers and grandmothers are appealing to U.S. first lady Melania Trump for help reuniting with their children

First lady Melania Trump listens during a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — María Alejandra Rubio hasn't seen her son in five months. They were separated in the United States when she was detained to be deported to her native Venezuela and he was sent to live with a family friend.

Rubio says U.S. immigration authorities led her to believe she would board a plane to Venezuela with her 8-year-old son, Anyerson. But she made the hourslong journey last month without him.

Heartbroken, Rubio is now part of a group of Venezuelan mothers and grandmothers appealing to U.S. first lady Melania Trump to help them see their children and grandchildren again. Members of the group, backed by Venezuela’s government, say they sent Trump a letter seeking her assistance last month.

“He tells me, ‘Mom, I want to be with you. I want to return to my country with you,’” Rubio said of her calls with Anyerson, who is in Georgia. “So, I would really like the first lady to put her hand on her heart and answer our letter.”

Trump’s office didn't immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press seeking comment on the letter. Venezuela’s government on Thursday told the AP the letter, dated Aug. 18, was sent to the White House via a private mail delivery service.

“We ask you as mothers to raise our voices, to help our children return to their homes, to be a bridge to the justice and humanity that you yourself call for,” members of the group wrote, according to a copy of the letter shared with the AP. “We ask you to listen to the cries of families, to stop this separation policy from continuing, to simply deport mothers along with their children.”

Venezuelans are being steadily deported to their home country this year after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, under pressure from the White House, did away with his long-standing policy of not accepting deportees from the U.S. Immigrants now arrive regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by a U.S. government contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline.

Maduro’s government has said more than 10,000 migrants, including children, had returned to the South American country as of mid-August. But not all parents have traveled with their children.

Among the minors separated from their parents was 2-year-old Maikelys Espinoza. She remained in the U.S. after her mother was deported to Venezuela and her father was sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador under President Donald Trump’s invocation of an 18th-century wartime law to swiftly deport hundreds of immigrants.

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FILE - People hold signs with images of children in U.S. custody whose parents were deported, at a government-organized rally in Caracas, Venezuela, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

The U.S. government said Maikelys' separation was justified because U.S. authorities had linked her parents to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, which the Republican president designated a terrorist organization. The girl reunited with her mother in mid-May in Venezuela and with her father in July, when he was released from the Salvadoran prison.

Maduro publicly thanked President Trump after Maikelys arrived in Venezuela. The U.S. does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela's president, but it has negotiated various actions with his government this year, including the release of several Americans detained in the South American country. The U.S. government, however, has said the return of minors to Venezuela could take time.

“Unlike the illegitimate Maduro regime, the United States does not use children as bargaining chips, and we will not be rushed to move unaccompanied minors before thoroughly assessing what is in their best interest,” the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs posted on X on Aug. 8.

Like Venezuelan government officials, mothers and grandmothers who signed the letter seeking the return of children to their home country are characterizing their stay in the U.S. as kidnappings.

“You not having contact with your child, you not knowing where your child is, is a kidnapping. We don’t know where she is,” Syntia Cáceres said Thursday, referring to her granddaughter Aurore, who's 4.

Cáceres said her grandchild was placed in foster care in Georgia after her son was detained in July. She said the family caring for Aurore allowed her to speak with the girl once last month but later told her that child protective services instructed the family to end any contact with the grandmother.

Cáceres now wants to make sure her son and granddaughter are deported together when the time comes.

“If they’re going to deport people, it doesn’t matter, but they should deport them with their children,” she said. “If (President Trump) doesn’t want us there in his country, it doesn’t matter, fine. Deport us, send us back, but all together.”

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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report from Washington.