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the i mprisoned e xecutives, is able to take only part-
time work because she has to take care of her special-
needs s on Sergio. She has had to fall back on church
donations i n Houston for food and has had to apply
for food stamps to pay medical bills.
Citgo says it is supporting U.S. efforts to secure
the release of the men, who they refer to as “our col-
leagues,” but did not provide details. “CITGO be-
lieves that the detention of these men violates t heir
fundamental human rights, including the right to
due process under law,” the company said in a state-
ment. “We continue to support the detainees’ fami-
lies, and we are grateful for the e fforts of this Admin-
istration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to
bring these men home.”
Throughout this ordeal, the families were ad-
vised t o s tay quiet. In meetings a nd c alls with State
Department officials, they were assured that the
U.S. was doing everything it could to secure their
release. But they could see little progress, and few
specifics were shared with them. “We don’t know
with a ny level of detail whatsoever what the U.S. is
doing,” Añez said.
Current and former officials s ay t hat such deli-
cate diplomacy is best undertaken behind the scenes.
“Maduro takes Americans as a pawn in a chess game
that he’s playing in trying to survive as a dictator,”
says Fernando Cutz, who worked on the National Se-
curity Council under both the Obama and Trump
administrations. “The U.S. can sanction h im and his
whole economy, and there’s not a whole lot he can d oback at us. It’s a rare piece of leverage. It’s very tough,
but often the best strategy [in these cases] is to work
behind the scenes.”
State Department officials, including those in the
the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hos-
tage Affairs, have worked “both directly and through
intermediaries” to press the Maduro regime to release
the men, a s pokesperson for the State Department
Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs tells TIME.
Representative Pete Olson, a Texas Republican
who counts three of the detained men as constitu-
ents, similarly says that “most of the diplomacy to
secure their release is not happening in front of the
media for security reasons,” although he acknowl-
edged “it seems for every two steps forward we take
toward their release, we then take one step back.”
But over time, the families have grown increas-
ingly frustrated. They say they don’t understand
why Trump and other officials, in their frequent
denunciations o f Maduro as a dictator and expres-
sions of support for the suffering of the Venezuelan
people, h ave rarely mentioned the five U.S. citizens
imprisoned there. While the Trump Administration
touted its record of returning American hostages,
including from Venezuela, their detained family
members seemed t o h ave been forgotten. ConstantJORGE
TOLEDO
in 2018From left: the Vadells in Lake Charl es, La.,
Thanksgiving 2015; Cardenas shows fa mily
photo graphs of her husband in Octo ber;
Toledo with his fa mily in 20 12WVENEZUELA.indd 53 3/25/20 1:02 PM