What is behind the record arrivals of Venezuelan immigrants across the southern border?

The influx of tens of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants shows no signs of abating. In September alone, approximately 50,000 Venezuelan citizens crossed the US-Mexico border illegally. This record number was reported in preliminary statistics from the Department of Homeland Security, as obtained by CBS News. But what is behind these figures? What causes citizens to be "expelled" from their country by the Bolivarian regime, as experts allege?

Although progressives insist on blaming democratic countries for the departure of millions of Venezuelans from their country of origin. The reality is that the complex humanitarian crisis has a culprit: socialism. It is not true, no matter how much Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims it to be, that countries like the United States are responsible for the famine and exodus that Venezuelans are experiencing. In a recent interview with the CBS program Face the Nation, the legislator directly blamed North American foreign policy for causing people to leave Venezuela and enter the United States both en masse, and illegally.

AOC began by calling for immigration reform and then shifted focus to "examine the route of the problem," that is, the reason that causes citizens of other countries to end up on the southern border seeking to enter"the land of the free and the home of the brave." It was at this juncture that she criticized the sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump on dictator Nicolás Maduro, contending that Senator Marco Rubio championed these policies.

According to the congresswoman, these sanctions "precipitated" and were very important in "the expulsion of the population to our southern border," particularly from Venezuela. "To truly address the asylum crisis, we must start with American foreign policy and the global dynamics that create it. Trump/Rubio's sweeping sanctions have played a major role in expelling millions of people from Venezuela. Serious discussions about asylum seekers must address that," AOC wrote on her X (Twitter) account.

However, Ocasio-Cortez's claims are false. Before the democratic world turned its gaze to Venezuela, citizens were already subjected to hunger, the failures of public services, the increase in poverty and a health system in which they died due to lack of even basic supplies in hospitals. Since the beginning of the crisis, statistics reflected a progressive drop in household income, an increase in poverty and the beginning of the collapse of the health system.

Added to this, insecurity in the streets and political persecution led thousands of Venezuelans to emigrate during the Government of the late President Hugo Chávez. The crisis mainly began because Chavismo did not take advantage of the oil bonanza. On the contrary, serious acts of corruption were recorded during the commander's successive mandates. In 2012, 63% of Venezuelans said corruption was widespread in the government, according to a Gallup study.

In fact, politicians like David Smolansky, former commissioner of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis, responded to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and reminded her that the Venezuelan regime is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in the South American country. Against this backdrop, Smolansky then published photographs of the humanitarian emergency before international sanctions were even announced.

"In my country, the situation is terrible: 9.3 million people face hunger, surpassing even Haiti. Since 1999, we have witnessed almost 400,000 homicides, surpassing the numbers in Mexico. Additionally, 90% of the population lives in poverty or extreme poverty, and the oil industry was producing only 1.2 million barrels per day when sanctions were imposed, compared to the 3.2 million barrels per day previously due to corruption and mismanagement," Smolansky said.

That is, before the United States issued sanctions against the Venezuelan socialist regime in 2014, this country was already experiencing a deep social and economic crisis. In that sense, the first measures of a US Government against Chavismo officials were taken in response to the violation of human rights during the student protests in 2014 by the Government of Nicolás Maduro, political heir of Hugo Chávez.

This violation of human rights is under investigation by the International Criminal Court. In November 2021, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, opened an investigation into possible crimes against humanity in Venezuela. "Since 2020, the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission has identified sufficient grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed as part of a state policy of repression of opponents," Human Rights Watch said.

In short, crime, the humanitarian crisis and the dictatorship are the real reasons why Venezuelans are emigrating more and more from their country. A report by HumVenezuela, collected by Human Rights Watch, noted in March that "most Venezuelans face difficulties in accessing food, and that there are 10.9 million people undernourished or chronically hungry. About 4.3 million must deprive themselves of food, often including going days without eating.”

"The deepening humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by the lack of access to basic services. From 2021 to 2022, access to safe water and sanitation decreased, as reported by HumVenezuela. This has exposed nearly 4.4 million people to a pressing need for safe drinking water and sanitation. Additionally, 1.3 million people have an urgent need for basic health services," stated Human Rights Watch.

"There will always be Venezuelans fleeing as long as Maduro is in power"

And the reasons why Venezuelans decide to emigrate have not changed. David Smolansky detailed this in a conversation with the newspaper El Nacional, that during his tenure at the OAS he collected testimonies from the victims of the dictatorship. "Our office has collected at least 700 testimonies from victims of the dictatorship and there is one constant: people continue to flee due to food shortages, medicine shortages, insecurity, systematic violations of human rights, threats, persecution and economic collapse,” Smolansky said.

For this reason, Smolanky insisted that citizens leave the country “not of their own free will, but because they have been expelled from Venezuela.” For this reason, he maintained that the region's migration crisis also involves the departure of dictator Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela. "There will always be Venezuelans fleeing the country as long as Maduro is in power and that has been a constant since 2014. Maduro took power in 2013 and this migration crisis has been occurring since 2014. "Practically all the time that Maduro has been in Miraflores," Smolansky explained.