Level 4 Alert Prohibits All Travel to Venezuela for U.S. Citizens and Urges Immediate Departure for Those Already There Photo: U.S. Department of State Website
Guacamaya, July 24, 2025. Following the exchange of ten U.S. citizens and permanent residents detained in Venezuela for the repatriation of 252 Venezuelan migrants from El Salvador, the United States reaffirmed its highest-level travel alert—Level 4—for Venezuela. The State Department maintained that no U.S. citizens remain “unjustly” detained in the country, despite one of the released individuals being convicted of triple homicide in Spain.
In a new statement, the U.S. government urged its citizens and residents not to travel to Venezuela “under any circumstances,” citing “high risk of unjust detention, torture during custody, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor healthcare infrastructure.”
The State Department, which issued the alert, labeled staying in Venezuela as an “extreme danger.” The White House emphasized that individuals—including dual nationals or permanent residents—could be detained and remain beyond the reach of U.S. consular services, following the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas in 2019.
The warning comes after the prisoner swap that secured freedom for ten people—U.S. citizens and permanent residents detained in Venezuela. In return, 252 Venezuelan migrants imprisoned at the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador, accused by the U.S. of belonging to criminal organizations, were flown back to Caracas.
While Washington framed the exchange as a diplomatic success, it was not without controversy. According to El País, one of the Americans extradited was Dahud Hanid Ortiz, a former Marine with Venezuelan citizenship, sentenced in 2024 to 30 years in prison for the 2016 triple murder in Madrid.
