From hiding to Nobel laureate: María Corina Machado's continues fight for Venezuela's democracy

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — María Corina Machado has long been the face of resistance to Venezuela's 26-year ruling party. Now, she is also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who prompted millions of Venezuelans to reject President Nicolás Maduro in last year's election, appeared in public for the first time in 11 months on Thursday, following her arrival in Norway, where her daughter received the award on her behalf the previous day.

Machado had been in hiding since Jan. 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters during an anti-government protest in Venezuela's capital, Caracas.

Her Nobel win for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her South American nation was announced on Oct. 10. Hours after waving from the balcony of a hotel to a cheering crowd gathered outside on Thursday, Machado told reporters that she would continue the fight for her homeland's democracy and promised to return soon.

“My return will be when we believe the security conditions are right, and it won’t depend on whether or not the regime leaves,” she said. “It will be as soon as possible.”

Machado, an industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate, began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.

She drew the anger of Chávez and his allies the following year for her Oval Office meeting with then U.S. President George W. Bush. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.

Her full transformation into a politician would come in 2010, when she was elected to a seat in the National Assembly, receiving more votes than any aspiring lawmaker ever. It was from this position that she boldly interrupted Chávez as he addressed the legislature and called his expropriation of businesses theft.

“An eagle does not hunt a fly,” he responded. The exchange is seared in voters’ memories.

Machado, 58, sought Venezuela's presidency for the first time in 2012, but she finished third in the primary race to be the presidential candidate for the Democratic Unity Roundtable.

The ruling party-controlled National Assembly ousted Machado in 2014 and, months later, the Comptroller General’s Office barred her from public office for a year, citing an alleged omission on her asset declaration form. That same year, the government accused her of being involved in an alleged plot to kill Maduro, who succeeded Chávez after his 2013 death.

Machado, a free-market firebrand, denied the charge, calling it an attempt to silence her and opposition members who had called tens of thousands of people to the streets in anti-government protests that at times turned violent.

She kept a low profile for the next nine years, supporting some anti-Maduro initiatives and election boycotts and criticizing opposition efforts to negotiate with the government. By the time she announced a new bid for the presidency in 2023, her careful messaging had softened her image as an elitist hard-liner, allowing her to connect with skeptics on both sides.

She won the opposition's presidential primary with more than 90% of the vote, unifying the faction — as noted by the Nobel Prize committee. But ruling party loyalists who control the country’s judiciary kept her from appearing on the ballot, which forced her to throw her support behind former diplomat Edmundo González.

She hiked on overpasses, walked highways, rode motorcycles, sought shelter in supporters’ homes and saw her closest collaborators be arrested as she kept campaigning across Venezuela. She repeatedly joined thousands of supporters chanting in unison “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” in rallies and asked them to vote for González, a virtual unknown who had never run for office.

González crushed Maduro by a more than a two-to-one margin, according to voting machine records collected by the opposition and validated by international observers. Still, Venezuela's National Electoral Council, loyal to the ruling party, declared Maduro the winner of the July 28, 2024, contest.

People protested the results across the country, and the government responded with full force, arresting more than 2,000 people and accusing them of plotting to oust Maduro and sow chaos. Most were released over the following months, but the government simultaneously arrested dozens of people who actively participated in Machado’s efforts last year.

Some of Machado's closest collaborators, including her campaign manager, avoided prison by sheltering for more than a year at a diplomatic compound in Caracas, where they remained until May, when they fled to the U.S. She reunited with them, her family and González on Thursday.

González went into exile in Spain last year after he became the subject of an arrest warrant, and Machado hadn't been seen in public since January, when she joined people protesting Maduro's planned swearing-in ceremony. Her and González's inability to stop Maduro from taking the oath of office led to a decline in support.

People's trust has diminished since then, primarily over Machado's unquestionable support for Trump, including the large U.S. maritime deployment in the Caribbean that has carried out deadly strikes off the coast of Venezuela. This has led to new divisions within the opposition, but she remains undeterred in her efforts to oust Maduro.

Machado told reporters Thursday that Venezuelans have “given everything for an orderly and peaceful transition to democracy” and now need “action,” not just statements, from other governments to meet their goal.

“The one who has declared war on Venezuelans is the Maduro regime,” she said. “In criminal systems, we need the world’s democracies to support our citizens.”

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Government supporters gather for a rally marking the anniversary of the Battle of Santa Ines, which took place during Venezuela's 19th-century Federal War, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado reacts to the crowd gathered below at the Grand Hotel, in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Lise Åserud/NTB Scanpix via AP)

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado reacts to the crowd gathered in front of the Grand Hotel, in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Jonas Been Henriksen/NTB Scanpix via AP)

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado smiles during a press conference at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Heiko Junge/NTB Scanpix via AP)

FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado displays vote tally sheets during a protest against the reelection of President Nicolas Maduro one month after the disputed presidential vote which she says the opposition won by a landslide, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia freed from immigration detention on Thursday while his legal challenge against his deportation moves forward, handing a major victory to the immigrant whose wrongful deportation to a notorious prison in El Salvador made him a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement must release Abrego Garcia from custody immediately.

“Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority,” the judge wrote. “For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia’s Petition for immediate release from ICE custody.”

The Department of Homeland Security was highly critical of the judge's order and vowed to oppose it, calling it “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. "This order lacks any valid legal basis, and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary.

Messages seeking comment were left with Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the ruling.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he originally immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. An immigration judge in 2019 ruled Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family. When Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported there in March, his case became a rallying point for those who oppose President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. under a court order. Since he cannot be deported to El Salvador, ICE has been seeking to deport him to a series of African countries. His lawsuit in federal court claims Trump's Republican administration is illegally using the deportation process to punish Abrego Garcia over the embarrassment of his mistaken deportation to El Salvador.

In her order releasing Abrego Garcia, Xinis wrote that federal authorities “did not just stonewall” the court, “They affirmatively misled the tribunal.” The reference was made to the successive list of four African countries officials had sought to remove Abrego Garcia to and submitted affirmations that Costa Rica had rescinded its offer to accept him — later determined to be untrue.

“But Costa Rica had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there,” the judge wrote.

Xinis also dismissed the federal government's arguments that the court did not have jurisdiction to rule on a final order of removal, noting that order had not been filed.

“Thus, Abrego Garcia’s request for immediate release cannot touch upon the execution of a removal order if no such order exists,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, in a separate action in immigration court, Abrego Garcia is petitioning to reopen his immigration case to seek asylum in the United States.

Additionally, Abrego Garcia is facing criminal charges in federal court in Tennessee, where he has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling. He has filed a motion to dismiss the charges, claiming the prosecution is vindictive.

A judge in that case has ordered an evidentiary hearing to be held on the motion after previously finding some evidence that the prosecution against Abrego Garcia “may be vindictive.” The judge said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern.”

The judge specifically cited a statement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that seemed to suggest the Justice Department charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful deportation case.

FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia joins supporters in a protest rally outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)