CARACAS - The US treatment of Venezuelan migrants, who were deported and are being held in El Salvador, is an "assault against humanity," Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said Thursday.

"Something as crass as what is happening to Venezuelan migrants ... is not an assault against Venezuela, it is an assault against humanity," Padrino Lopez said during celebrations marking the 16th anniversary of the Bolivarian National Militia.

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"Grabbing, seizing and imprisoning a migrant without due process, simply because he is Venezuelan, putting him on a plane, handcuffing him and placing him in another country is not an assault against Venezuela, it is an assault against humanity," he said.

Washington is violating people's fundamental rights, as well as imposing "a new wave of sanctions against the country" that aim to strangle the economy and further destabilize Venezuela, he added.