Claudia Macero, who ran press operations for opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, returned to Venezuela from exile on Sunday and was welcomed by hundreds of supporters at the airport serving Caracas. She said she did not know when Machado could return.
Macero and several Machado associates took refuge in Argentina’s embassy in Caracas in March 2024 to elude arrest during a wave of repression ahead of that year’s presidential election. They stayed for a year, then left in May 2025 and appeared in the United States after a secretive operation the Trump administration says it engineered but has not explained.
Machado came out of hiding in December to collect her Nobel Prize in Norway, briefly stayed in the United States and later settled in Panama City. Her party says she has tried seven times to return to Venezuela. Analysts say Washington is preventing her return; the Trump administration denies this.
