Washington D.C. – ABC News, May 28, 2025
The State Department is ramping up efforts to dissuade Americans from traveling to Venezuela after revealing on Tuesday that the country is unjustly imprisoning more Americans than any other country.
“There are more U.S. citizens being held in prisons in Venezuela than any other country,” said Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s special presidential envoy for hostage recovery.
“And these are not people that did anything wrong,” he continued. “Their only issue is that they are American. Venezuela takes more Americans than any other country for that sole reason.”
While the State Department has not revealed exactly how many U.S. citizens are behind bars in Venezuela, at least eight Americans are known to be detained in the country.
The State Department has classified Venezuela under its most severe travel advisory, “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” since February 2019. But on Tuesday, the U.S. embassies in Colombia, Guyana, Brazil and Aruba and the State Department’s Venezuela Affairs Unit reissued the warning in an attempt to reach more Americans.
