resulted in the crisis in Venezuela the world’s largest mass migration in recent history: More than 7.7 million people have fled the country since 2014, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The ongoing protests and tensions since Sunday’s election, and the deadlock over who is legitimately elected, are raising questions about whether more Venezuelans will leave the country.
US opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez recognized Urrutia as the newly elected president. The evidence was announced by the opposition this weekSecretary of State Anthony Blinken he said Thursday night.
But Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government insists it won, although it has not released the results of all the voting machines to prove it – something the United States and other countries are urging the government to do.
US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said this week that “the international community, including the United States, Venezuela is running out of patience waiting for electoral authorities to be honest and publish full and detailed election information so that “the results are visible to all.”
After 25 years of autocratic rule, a significant portion of Venezuelans in the country and in exile had high expectations for change.
But the National Electoral Committee’s (CNE) declaration of Maduro’s victory could fuel despair and worsen the exodus.
More than 40% of Venezuelans polled before the election said they would consider leaving the country If Maduro stays in power.
“I think we’re going to see days of protests where the regime will try to quell them or just wait for them to die down,” said Ryan J. Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Axios Latino.
The US has seen major migration changes since the crisis in Venezuela: a Pew Research Center analysisThere are an estimated 640,000 Venezuelan-born Latinos living in the United States—a 592% increase since 2000.
According to figures released by CBP in July, Between June and January 2022, approximately 110,541 Venezuelans entered the United States legally and were granted parole. As of September 2023, There were 242,700 Venezuelans in the United States under Temporary Protected Status or TPS. At that time, this protection was extended and an additional 472,000 Venezuelans were estimated to be eligible.
In denver, Mayor Mike Johnston said that in the past year, there have been more migrants per capita than any other city.
Denver Human Services spokesman Jon Ewing told Axios reporter Alayna Alvarez on Monday that officials in Colorado are already working to determine any local impact of the crisis in Venezuela.
If the city sees another surge in migrant arrivals, officials have no intention of going back to that pattern. providing shelter for several weeks To recently arrived migrants, Ewing said.
But it is not clear how many migrants will reach US cities like Denver Mexico forcibly stopped the flow The number of people crossing the North and President Joe Biden signed an executive action in June sharply limits asylum claims.
In the last two months border crossings were at the lowest level Since Biden took office in early 2021.
From Migration to US Politics
Trump has said several times, including in a campaign email this week, that “countries, particularly Venezuela, are exporting criminals to the United States.”
In May, a Georgia grand jury indicted Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan citizen who entered the United States illegally in 2022. Killing and kidnapping 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley.
But This was reported by NBC Newsa bunch is studying found that both legal and undocumented immigrants committed fewer crimes overall than native-born Americans.
Trump said in his speech in June Venezuelans “crossed our border claiming to be afraid for their lives in Venezuela, but you know crime has gone down in Venezuela … because they brought all the criminals here,” he said. Convention in Milwaukee.
But what Trump said is a lie. Although the number of violent deaths in Venezuela will decrease by nearly 25% in 2023 compared to 2021 and 2022, According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatorythe decline is part of a trend seen since 2018, when Trump became president.
According to Ronna Rísquez, co-founder of the violence monitor Victims Monitor, Venezuela’s unprecedented wave of migration and the fact that there are fewer people in the country are reducing the number of “everything” including cancer and traffic deaths. as a co-founder In. VisiblesInvestigating victims of organized crime in Latin America.
As part of this migration, some criminals have emigrated from Venezuela not only to the United States, but also to other Latin American countries, said Carlos Nieto, the organization’s coordinator. A Window to Freedom, an organization that defends and promotes human rights for Venezuelans. But “among the millions of people who emigrated from Venezuela, criminals are a minority,” he said.
Although the authorities arrested 47 ambitious members of the Tren de Aragua gang in the United States in 2023-2024 More than 330,000 Venezuelans crossed the US border.
In addition, experts on Venezuela told Noticias Telemundo that there is no evidence of a government policy aimed at sending criminals to other countries. “Here, they don’t really release the prisoners to send them anywhere,” Nieto said.
The Trump campaign also claimed that Kamala Harris “deliberately imported millions of people illegally in hopes of converting them to Democratic voters.” is also a lie.
Trump has said Biden and Democrats are encouraging illegal immigration to register new voters, but has never provided evidence to support his claim. Noncitizen immigrants cannot vote, and there is no evidence of voter fraud by noncitizen immigrants.
Jaime Florez, Hispanic communications director for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, told Noticias Telemundo when asked what immigration measures, such as Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole, apply to Venezuelans in the United States, “the existing laws must be respected.” suggest to change or keep. “The campaign does not comment on hypothetical situations,” Florez said, adding that “the Republican National Committee’s statement is the same as the Trump campaign’s statement.”
Maca Casado, Hispanic media director for the Harris campaign, said that while she could not predict what the Harris administration’s foreign policy would do, Biden extended Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans. “Harris is not going to abandon Venezuelans, he hasn’t done that in the past,” Casado said, pointing to the administration’s “support for the Venezuelan people and asking for the voting records of Sunday’s election.”
In Florida, home to a large Venezuelan American population, elected officials from both parties are calling for more US sanctions against Venezuela after the disputed election results, while Republicans have criticized the Biden administration. Easing of some sanctions in 2023. Amma is a political science professor at Florida International University Eduardo Gamarra told Politifact that it ignores fact Despite the harsh sanctions of the Trump administration, Maduro has remained in power in Venezuela.