As tensions between the United States and Venezuela escalate to levels not seen in years, the fate of dozens of foreign nationals imprisoned by Nicolás Maduro’s government is growing more precarious by the day. The mounting military pressure from Washington, combined with Caracas’s increasingly authoritarian grip, has created a climate of profound uncertainty—especially for families waiting anxiously for word from loved ones detained in Venezuelan jails.
On September 29, 2025, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signed a decree granting himself sweeping new powers. The very next day, he threatened to declare a state of emergency—a move that would centralize military control in his office for at least 90 days. These steps, reported by The Conversation, come as Caracas carries out military drills involving naval units, air-defense assets, and militias. Maduro’s message is clear: Venezuela is preparing for all eventualities, projecting resolve to both domestic and foreign audiences.
For many Venezuelans, the question is no longer whether relations with Washington will boil over—they already have. The real unknown is whether the U.S. will escalate from its current posture of pressure and counternarcotics operations to something far more drastic, like direct military engagement or even regime change. According to The Conversation, the U.S. Southern Command has positioned at least 4,500 Marines and sailors in the Caribbean near Venezuela. The USS Stockdale recently joined the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, making it the ninth U.S. Navy vessel and third destroyer in the area. At least 10 F-35 fighters and multiple MQ-9 drones are operating out of Puerto Rico, providing persistent surveillance and strike options.
While these forces far outmatch the Venezuelan navy, they are not on the scale required for a full-scale invasion. For now, the U.S. frames its activities as enhanced counternarcotics operations, working alongside the Royal Netherlands Navy, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and the United Kingdom. But with President Donald Trump vowing at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2025, to blow drug traffickers “out of existence” and placing a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s arrest, the rhetoric is anything but restrained.
Inside Venezuela, these developments have sent shockwaves through the families of foreign nationals detained in the country’s prisons. One of them is Manuel Alejandro Tique, a 32-year-old humanitarian worker from Bogotá, Colombia. According to NPR, Tique was arrested on September 14, 2024, at a Venezuelan border post while attempting to enter the country. For more than a month, his family heard nothing. “We lost contact with him on Sept. 14 [of last year],” his sister Diana Tique said, “and only got news of him on Oct. 17, when Venezuelan officials spoke about him on TV.”
That October, Venezuela’s powerful interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, accused Tique of being a mercenary recruiting fighters for an anti-government mission. In the year since, Tique has been allowed only two phone calls and is currently held in Rodeo One, a maximum-security prison where inmates rarely leave their cells. “It’s heart-wrenching,” his father, Víctor Manuel, told NPR, “because it’s a situation that you cannot control.”
Tique’s case is far from unique. As of early October 2025, there are 89 foreign nationals from countries including Colombia, Spain, Argentina, France, and the Czech Republic imprisoned in Venezuela, according to Human Rights Watch. Many, like Tique, are humanitarian workers, tourists, or businesspeople with no involvement in Venezuelan politics. Yet, the Maduro government has accused several of plotting to overthrow the regime, a charge human rights groups say is baseless.
Juan Pappier, deputy Americas director at Human Rights Watch, describes the situation bluntly: “It appears that the Venezuelan regime is holding these foreigners as hostages.” He argues that after the widely contested 2024 presidential election—condemned as fraudulent by dozens of countries—Maduro’s government intensified its detention of foreigners, using them as leverage against foreign governments that refused to recognize his reelection. “Foreign governments did the right thing by condemning the electoral fraud in 2024. And in response, the Maduro regime is extorting them by holding their nationals in prison and forcing them to engage with the Maduro regime for their release,” Pappier said.
Earlier in 2025, Venezuela released 10 Americans in exchange for more than 200 Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador. But such deals offer little comfort to the families of those still detained. Human rights lawyer Laura Dib of the Washington Office on Latin America warns that negotiating for prisoner releases can make things worse: “It actually creates a very dangerous environment in which anyone can be detained,” she told NPR. “The Venezuelan government has realized there are benefits from keeping international hostages.”
David Guillaume, a nurse from Florida, spent four months in Rodeo One after being arrested as a tourist in September 2024. He was released in January 2025, along with five other Americans, after a Trump envoy met with Maduro. Guillaume described how he and Tique coped with boredom and anxiety in prison by playing chess with pieces made from toilet paper. “My American privilege kind of made me chill, because I realized I wasn’t going to be there for a long time,” Guillaume said. But for most, freedom remains elusive.
The growing U.S. military presence off Venezuela’s coast has only heightened the anxiety of prisoners’ families. “I’m scared about the military pressure,” said Tique’s father, Víctor Manuel. “It might lead to freedom, but it could also mean Maduro holds these prisoners for longer.”
Meanwhile, the broader geopolitical chessboard is shifting. Russia, which made a publicized naval visit to La Guaira in July 2024 and has sent nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela in the past, continues to offer political support—though its capacity for direct intervention is limited. China, a major buyer of Venezuelan oil, has voiced strong opposition to the use of force and external interference, emphasizing support for Venezuela’s sovereignty. Any U.S. action that disrupts oil flows could provoke a diplomatic and economic backlash from Beijing.
Within the region, most governments are wary of being drawn into conflict. The president of Dominica stated at the UN General Assembly, “there is no place in the Caribbean for war.” Colombia, however, has been more vocal, with President Gustavo Petro calling for “criminal proceedings” over recent U.S. strikes. Guyana, locked in a territorial dispute with Venezuela, has welcomed U.S. security cooperation.
Despite the saber-rattling, the odds of a full-scale U.S. invasion remain low. Several forecasters put the likelihood of some form of U.S. strike before the end of 2025 at roughly one in three. Public opinion in the U.S. is a significant brake: Most Americans oppose military action to topple Maduro, and an even larger majority reject the idea of an outright invasion.
For now, Washington’s strategy appears to be one of pressure without full commitment: shows of force, sanctions, and selective strikes designed to weaken Caracas while avoiding a messy war or a global oil shock. But as the standoff drags on, the human cost—borne by prisoners like Manuel Alejandro Tique and their families—continues to mount, with no resolution in sight.
