On July 28th, Venezuela held a presidential election between incumbent Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled as a de-facto dictator since a fraudulent 2018 election, and Edmundo González, the leading opposition candidate.
The Maduro regime deployed a laundry list of repressive tactics during the campaign, including banning the most popular opposition figure, Maria Corina Machado, from running, arresting journalists, and harassing civilians who publicly supported the opposition.
Despite these conditions, polling ahead of the election predicted a landslide win for González, and the Venezuelan opposition achieved the remarkable result of not only winning convincingly but also thoroughly documenting evidence of their victory. Once it became apparent that the government had suffered an undeniable defeat, the Maduro regime moved quickly to shut down the transmission of results. Nevertheless, thousands of poll watchers managed to collect and scan physical tally sheets printed by the voting machines. These currently show González taking 67% of the vote to Maduro’s 30%, with margins of victory as high as 445,000 votes in heavily populated states like Zulia.
Migration was a core theme of the election. Opposition leader María Corina Machado’s campaign rally cry, “Volver a Casa” – “return home”– struck a nerve with the country’s diaspora of nearly 8 million people and their families as she and Plataforma Unitaria Democrática (PUD) candidate Edmundo González Urrutia campaigned around the country. The Maduro government also campaigned on the promise of reunifying families, making unsubstantiated claims that one million migrants have already returned home under its “Misión Vuelta a la Patria” – “Return to the Homeland” – program and calling for the homecoming of the diaspora amidst modest economic recovery.
Despite this political rhetoric, the uncertainty around the transition to democracy makes another wave of migration from Venezuela all but inevitable.
Background
Before the election on July 28, polls showed that as many as one-third of Venezuelans would consider migrating out of Venezuela if Nicolás Maduro remains in power come January. Whether that will happen, as of the writing of this article, remains unclear as opposition protests continue and the regime doubles down on detaining dissenters. In a more recent poll, 43% of respondents indicated they would consider leaving Venezuela due to the election crisis, with an additional 34.7% being undecided.
An exodus of this size would add roughly 10.4 million to the staggering Venezuelan diaspora population. Since 2014, more than 7.7 million people have fled Venezuela due to political instability, authoritarian repression, economic crisis, and violence. Some 2,000 people leave the country each day. The vast majority of the diaspora currently resides within Latin America and the Caribbean, but some have traveled further, especially to the U.S. and Spain. Currently, about 545,200 Venezuelan migrants are residing in the U.S.
While Venezuela’s regional neighbors have hosted the bulk of Venezuelan migrants, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economies of the region have pushed some Venezuelan migrants to leave countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile to make the trek to the U.S. border in search of better opportunities.
Initial response
In the immediate aftermath of the election, various regional governments have taken actions that could impact incoming migrants. The weekend of the election, borders between Venezuela and neighboring Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana were closed, though irregular routes – trochas – were unimpacted. Additionally, diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Panama, and Uruguay were suspended shortly after July 28th. This impacts Venezuelans’ ability to obtain or renew documentation and will likely impact visa processing and other regular migration processes like family reunification. Direct flights between Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Peru have also been suspended.
R4V, the Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, has tracked migration patterns since the election. To date, there have not been significant increases in the number of Venezuelan arrivals in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, or Chile. However, it is worth noting that Peru and Chile have already elected to increase border control measures, and Chile has deployed military personnel to its northern border specifically out of concerns over a “wave of Venezuelan migrants.”
Long-term prognosis
An entrenched Maduro regime will only perpetuate the Venezuelan migration crisis. While Maduro has an interest in detaining leading opposition figures and those with first-hand accounts of his election fraud, allowing outward-bound migration to continue unimpeded presents several advantages for his regime’s survival. Large-scale migration gives Maduro a valuable bargaining chip to use in future negotiations, lessens the amount of resources his government has to spend on welfare and subsidies, deprives the opposition of some of its support base, and causes a distracting headache for unfriendly regional governments.
While some of these migrants will head to nearby countries like Colombia and Peru, these governments have strained resources thanks to years of being the frontline of the crisis and dim economic prospects for migrant workers. As a result, many will look to the U.S. as their best hope for economic and political freedom.
Although the U.S. has dealt with waves of Venezuelan migration, this one will pose unique challenges. The timing will coincide with the U.S. presidential elections in November. Stemming migration flows at the U.S. southern border has been a critical issue for voters this election cycle, and a renewed Venezuelan migration crisis will only raise the salience of the issue further.
Additionally, there are reasons to believe that newly arrived migrants will head to locations where their presence can become quickly politicized. According to TRAC Immigration’s database of new proceedings filed in immigration court, Texas, Florida, Colorado, Illinois, and New York were the five states with the highest rates of filings for Venezuelan nationals in 2024.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have already demonstrated a willingness to bus or fly these migrants to other states in ways designed to capture media attention. At the same time, mayors in Denver, Chicago, and New York City have all struggled with the political fallout and fiscal burden of drastically increased numbers of asylum seekers in their cities.
The U.S. should mitigate the Maduro regime’s ability to use migration to disrupt its domestic politics by adopting short- and long-term policy solutions aimed at reinforcing migration management capabilities, punishing facilitators and exploiters of irregular migration, and aiding regional partners who cooperate with U.S. migratory and diplomatic strategy towards Venezuela.
Immigration policy recommendations
First, the U.S. should implement policies that better allow us to handle future waves of Venezuelan migrants. The Biden administration’s parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans showed promise in reducing encounters with nationals of these countries at the southern border, even though it is temporarily on pause due to concerns over fraud. Once additional vetting measures are put in place and the program is restarted, the administration should consider raising the cap on Venezuelan parolees. Venezuela’s population is roughly the same as the other three countries combined, and the flat cap of 30,000 monthly parolees for all nationalities disproportionately affects Venezuelan applicants.
The administration should also work to connect state governments that are receiving migrants but struggling with them, like the five listed above, with cities and municipalities that are actively seeking workers due to labor shortages. To facilitate this, the U.S. should also prepare to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans again this fall, making it easier for newer arrivals to access work authorization and ease their fiscal burdens.
Second, the administration should impose more significant costs on the architects and facilitators of the electoral crisis. At present, U.S. visa and asylum restrictions on Venezuelans are limited to senior officials and foreign persons acting on behalf of a regime who knowingly threaten or undermine the democratically elected national assembly or its president.
Expanding the scope of officials to include security personnel and police engaged in these activities could help prevent violence against those protesting in favor of a democratically elected president. Upon identification, those currently suppressing the protests could be stripped of asylum or other visa statuses in the U.S. in future years.
This addition would also have implications for the U.S. response to the role Cuban security services play in repressing protests in Venezuela. As John Suarez of the Center for a Free Cuba has written, Cuban agents have helped direct the persecution and brutal torture of dissidents in Venezuela. In the wake of the election, unverified reports have surfaced of Cuban military personnel on the streets of Caracas. The U.S. should try to determine the credibility of these reports as part of a broader effort to more seriously scrutinize the role Cuba currently plays in propping up the Maduro regime and expand upon current sanctions against Cuban officials involved in Venezuela.
Finally, the U.S. should reward allies who cooperate with its approach to Venezuela. In the Northern Triangle of Central America, the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala have rejected Maduro’s fraudulent claim, while the government of Honduras has validated it. All future funds under the Partnership for Central America (PCA) and Central America Forward (CAF) initiatives, which direct private-public investment towards these countries to deter future irregular migration toward the U.S., should be directed toward El Salvador and Guatemala while excluding Honduras until it rescinds its recognition of Maduro’s claim.
Conclusion
While this crisis will only be solved by the ascension of a democratic government in Venezuela, U.S. immigration policy can play a role in assisting innocent victims of the regime, punishing the perpetrators of human rights abuses in the Maduro government, fomenting unity with our regional partners, and ultimately securing a democratic future for Venezuela.