Three weeks after American special forces snatched Nicolás Maduro from Caracas and hauled him to a New York jail cell, Venezuela's new government is still parceling out prisoner releases in dribs and drabs—freeing more than 100 over the weekend while at least 600 others remain locked up across the country.

The releases have satisfied Washington, at least for now. President Donald Trump called them a "powerful humanitarian gesture" and said he expected the pace to accelerate. But for the families camped outside Venezuelan prisons, sleeping on pavement and plastic chairs, the process has become an exercise in managed frustration.

"When they announced the releases, we thought they were all going to be freed," said Mileidy Mendoza, whose partner has been detained since November. "But it's just been a farce."

The Numbers Don't Add Up

The Venezuelan government says it has freed 626 prisoners since December. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello put the figure even higher on Monday—808, he claimed, without offering documentation.

Independent monitors tell a different story. Foro Penal, the Caracas-based human rights organization that has tracked political detentions for years, has verified 266 releases since January 8. The group's director, Alfredo Romero, said Sunday's wave alone accounted for 104 confirmed cases, with additional releases still being checked.

"It would be ideal if the government published lists of those released," Romero said.

They haven't. The absence of official documentation has made the process opaque, leaving families to rely on rumor, word of mouth, and the painstaking verification work of advocacy groups. Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said she would ask the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to verify the figures—an implicit concession that the government's own numbers lack credibility.

Cabello, for his part, rejected the premise entirely. "There are no political prisoners in Venezuela," he said Monday. "Only people who committed crimes."

Some Walk Free, Others Stay Behind

Kennedy Tejeda spent 18 months in a Venezuelan jail. His crime: showing up at a detention center to offer legal help to protesters who had been swept up after the disputed 2024 presidential election. He was arrested on the spot and held without trial until Sunday, when he finally walked out a free man.

Juan Francisco Alvarado, a communications student, went to prison in March for posting complaints about his hometown's sewage system on social media. Authorities charged him with "inciting hatred." He was released over the weekend.

Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González, had been held for more than a year after being grabbed while dropping his children off at school. He was freed earlier this month.

But the releases have been selective, and many prominent opposition figures remain behind bars. Juan Pablo Guanipa, a leader in the movement that most independent observers believe won the 2024 election, has been detained since May on charges of terrorism and treason. His son has seen him once—for 20 minutes—in the eight months since his arrest.

Two well-known human rights defenders, Javier Tarazona and Eduardo Torres, also remain imprisoned. Foro Penal counted 777 political prisoners as of January 19, including 70 foreigners or dual nationals. Another organization puts the figure above 900.

And human rights workers say the crackdown hasn't stopped. Orlando Moreno, an activist aligned with Nobel laureate María Corina Machado's opposition movement, cited the case of Alfredo Márquez, who was picked up on January 12 while walking to church.

"While some are going out the front door," Moreno said, "others are coming in through the back."

Vigils at the Prison Gates

Outside the Zone 7 detention center in east Caracas, about 20 women have been living on the sidewalk for two weeks. Some are in their 70s. They sleep on blankets, eat food delivered by sympathetic neighbors, and wait for news that rarely comes.

Forty kilometers away, at the Rodeo I maximum security prison, another group has pitched tents outside the walls. Among them is Massiel Cordones, whose son joined the army in 2018 and is now serving a 30-year sentence for his alleged role in a failed 2020 attempt to overthrow Maduro. He was 22 when he was arrested. He's 28 now.

Cordones drove seven hours from her home in Falcón state when she heard about the releases. Two weeks later, she's still waiting.

"Staying here is exhausting," she said. "But because I have this hope that my son is going to get out, the days just fly by."

At night, the families hold hands and pray. Sometimes they sing Venezuela's national anthem, with its lines about casting off chains and crying death to oppression. Then they go back to waiting.

A Strategy of Survival

The prisoner releases began days after Maduro's capture, when National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez—Delcy's brother—announced that the government would free a "significant number" of detainees as a gesture toward national reconciliation.

Trump responded favorably, posting that he would call off a second wave of military strikes in response. The message was clear enough: releases buy goodwill in Washington.

But analysts who study Venezuela see something more calculated at work. Orlando Pérez, a Latin America scholar at the University of North Texas at Dallas, said the Rodriguez government appeared to be threading a needle—"making enough changes to keep the U.S. satisfied, but not enough to be meaningful in terms of democratization."

The most powerful figures from Maduro's regime remain in place. Cabello runs the Interior Ministry. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López hasn't gone anywhere. Armed gangs loyal to the ruling party, known as colectivos, still control the streets in much of the country.

Pérez believes Rodriguez is playing for time, betting she can outlast American attention by offering Trump what he wants on oil while changing as little as possible on human rights. "It's a survival mechanism," he said.

Javier Corrales, who has written extensively on Venezuela's slide into authoritarianism, put it more bluntly. "Releasing political prisoners is always an amazing thing," he said. "But it means nothing in terms of ending the repression."

What Comes Next

None of the released prisoners have received unconditional freedom. Most are barred from speaking publicly about their cases. Many face ongoing court supervision and cannot leave the country. The restrictions amount to a kind of parole, keeping former detainees under the government's thumb even after they walk out of prison.

For the families still waiting, there is no timeline and no guarantee. The government has not said when—or whether—it will release the remaining prisoners. Rodriguez has offered no public list of names.

What she has offered is defiance. Speaking to oil workers in Venezuela's eastern Anzoátegui state on Sunday, she pushed back against American pressure.

"Enough orders from Washington," she said. "Let Venezuelan politics resolve our differences and internal conflicts. Enough of foreign powers."

The comment was directed at Trump. But it landed just as hard on the families outside the prisons, who have been waiting for weeks with no answers and little hope that the doors will open anytime soon.