Caracas, Venezuela - Two planes bringing home scores of Venezuelan migrants freed from a notorious Salvadoran prison where they were sent by the US touched down outside Caracas Friday after months of uncertainty about their fate.

The men, believed to number more than 200, were released following the outcome of a highly coordinated prisoner swap between Caracas and Washington.

President Nicolás Maduro thanked his US counterpart Donald Trump, whose administration had deported the men to El Salvador, for the men's return.

"I want to thank President Donald Trump for the decision to rectify this totally irregular situation," Maduro said at an official event after the planes landed.

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The US had sent the group of 252 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in March to be locked up in its feared CECOT so-called "anti-terrorism" jail, accused without evidence of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang.

The Trump administration invoked rarely used wartime laws to fly the men to the Central American nation without any court hearings, where they were imprisoned in conditions likened to a concentration camp.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on X that "today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country."

The US said the men were released in exchange for 10 Americans held in Venezuela and an unknown number of "political prisoners."