In a March 2025 interview, Scott St. Clair, the father of Joseph St. Clair, an American Air Force veteran unlawfully detained in Venezuela, discusses the emotional toll of his son’s prolonged captivity. The family relies on prayer, social media advocacy, and using any and all available means to raise awareness about Joe’s case. While Scott expresses appreciation for the government’s involvement, he voices frustration over the slow pace of progress. Despite these challenges, the family remains hopeful and committed to securing Joseph’s release.

How is the family coping with Joseph’s prolonged unlawful detention?

It has been difficult and emotional for me and his mother as well as his siblings. With Joseph’s siblings living in multiple states, I have had to serve as the family information and update expert and their mother, and I have had to do our best to provide emotional support. Since we knew so little about the details of Joseph’s circumstances due to Venezuela’s iron curtain, learning how and with whom to communicate has been a steep learning curve. We have learned a lot but dealing with the unknowns about how we can help, whether Joe is alive and healthy, how he is being treated in a prison system that is known for torture and human rights violations makes every day an emotional challenge.

How do you deal with and overcome frustration when things don’t seem to move forward?

We pray a lot and try our best to stay active and to continue with our lives under this cloud of concern and waiting. Some days the only thing that feels like we are doing anything to help involves a lot of posting on social media or asking questions of SPEHA and our hostage advocate Jon Franks. Any information we can grab onto that indicates movement or attention feels positive, but it is very hard to know if what we do is even effective.

Having periodic family calls and talking to friends in our faith family also helps.

How do you stay hopeful and lift your son’s spirits? 

As mentioned, we place our trust in Jesus and have a great deal of peace knowing that our God is in control and will never leave us or Joe regardless of the outcome. Also watching and celebrating hostages that come home is encouraging even though we want it to be Joe.

What are the toughest parts and main challenges of trying to free Joseph?

It goes back to trying to understand what a family can do that is effective. Prior to this crisis, we knew nothing about the space, who could help, what resources are available for advocacy, how to advocate. It can be confusing to know how and when to try to get people’s attention since advocates and governmental players are so busy when we are feeling the pain and want resolution 24/7.  The other thing that makes it tough is that we have no contact with Joe and can only wonder what he may be going through.

It is also a little difficult to know what the best campaign is, when to include his mother and siblings…how to let the world know that we are fighting for him and that it is important to rescue him from the grips of a tyrant that has a pattern of kidnapping foreigners for use as political bargaining chips.

Are you getting the support you need from organizations, the media, and others? How could they help more?

SPEHA has been very supporting. In fact, Adam Boehler has shown an amazing willingness to talk to us personally from the very beginning. Since Joe was designated, we now have the SPEHA team offering updates and resources and our case agent obviously cares very much about bringing Joe home. Organizations like yours and The James Foley Foundation have been proactive in communicating and offering resources and we will be attending the “Hostage Week” events in late April. Senator Eric Schmitt’s office has also supported us by advocating for Joe on the Hill and praying with us and helping us to learn how to navigate reaching Congress and higher.

Media has been more difficult, but we were able to work with the NYT in an article that came out last week and have some productive communication with other media influencers that seem to want to help amplify the Venezuela Hostage situation. It is surprising how few normal Americans are aware of the fact that Venezuela is now the country that holds the most Americans hostage with 9 known at this time.

Being aware of and having some contact with families going through the same thing is helpful, but I also know that each individual family must stay focused on their family member.

How frequently does the family talk to Joseph? How is he holding up?

There is ZERO contact since Maduro ignores all requests and is no longer operating by international legal standards for detainee communication.

Joe was recently designated unlawfully detained, do you have faith that the Government is doing all it can to bring him home especially after he was left behind when Americans were released from Venezuela? And what specific actions have you found most helpful or lacking? 

We are pleased with what the Government is saying and the resources and care that they have provided. We have faith that they will be successful because of the releases they have negotiated recently.  Since I am not a diplomat, it is still difficult to understand how and when they will take meaningful action, so this can make for an emotional waiting game.