Top Venezuelan Official Says All Foreigners Who Enter The Country Without Authorization Will Be Imprisoned: 'Whoever It May Be'

Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's regime-friendly Legislative Assembly, said on Wednesday all people who enter the country unlawfully will be arrested. The threat comes as tensions with the U.S. escalate over the deployment of warships off the coast of the South American country.

"Whoever it may be. Foreigners who enter the country unlawfully can come in, but won't come out. They'll stay here. In prison," Rodriguez said during an Assembly session, a statement greeted by applause from those present.

Several high-ranking officials have made confrontational statements over the past week as the topic dominates the conversation in the country. Attorney General Tarek William Saab also claimed that the Trump administration's claim about deploying warships off its coast is a "farse" to target the country's authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro.

"The U.S. empire has tried, and failed due to global rejection, using the farce of fighting drug-trafficking to place an unprecedented reward" on Maduro, the official said.

Maduro, on his end, said earlier this week that "the empire has gone mad," adding that the Trump administration is "fabricating extravagant lies" and "has regurgitated its threats to Venezuela's peace and stability."

Therefore, he said he will order the mobilization of millions of militia members to safeguard the country's security. "We'll guarantee sovereignty and peace in any circumstance that manifests itself over the next days, months and years. We will defeat American imperialism as it comes against our noble, peaceful and working people," Maduro said.

The White House, in turn, said it is "prepared to use every element of American power" to deal with the matter. Speaking during a press briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if the administration was considering having "boots on the ground" in Venezuela.

"The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela, it is a narco terror cartel. Maduro, in the view of this administration, is not a legitimate president. It's a fugitive head of a cartel who has been indicted in the U.S. for trafficking drugs into the country."