Adam Isacson

Defense, security, borders, migration, and human rights in Latin America and the United States. May not reflect my employer’s consensus view.

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Venezuela

288 People Rendered to El Salvador’s Mega-Prison. We Only Know 258 of Their Names.

This is enforced disappearance.

The Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had 288 Venezuelan and Salvadoran migrants in its custody. A vast majority, we now know, were not accused of committing crimes, and only a handful faced allegations of committing violent crimes (see CBS News, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Cristosal).

Then, they disappeared from ICE’s locator system and have apparently ended up in El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) prison. But nothing is certain because neither the U.S. nor the Salvadoran governments has confirmed their names. What we know about these individuals’ identities is entirely from leaks to secondary sources. Even their loved ones have no official information, with the partial exception of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—and that is because a judge ordered it.

Disappearing from custody without any official acknowledgment of one’s identity, then being sent to a prison with no end date and no judicial process at all? That, right there, is the definition of enforced disappearance: a major, serious human rights violation that is tragically familiar in Latin America but rare—until now—in the United States.

Here is what we know about the people disappeared from the United States and apparently rendered to incommunicado prison in El Salvador:

Country Known Names Unknown Names Total
Venezuela 245 7 252
El Salvador 13 23 36
Total 258 30 288

Venezuela, 252 people. 137 rendered under the Alien Enemies Act, the rest with final removal orders:

  • 238 people rendered to El Salvador on March 15. Names leaked to CBS News on March 20.
  • 7 people rendered to El Salvador on March 30. Names leaked to Fox News on March 31.
  • 7 people rendered to El Salvador as part of a group of 10 on April 13. Names are unknown. We only know it was 7 people because El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, tweeted on April 20 that 252 Venezuelans are in Salvadoran custody, and 245 Venezuelans were already in El Salvador.

El Salvador, 31 people, all with final removal orders:

  • 23 people rendered to El Salvador on March 15. From much reporting, we know the identities of 3: Kilmar Abrego Garcia and credibly alleged MS-13 members César Humberto López Larios alias “Greñas” and César Eliseo Sorto Amaya. The other 20 remain unnamed.
  • 10 people rendered to El Salvador on March 30. Names leaked to Fox News on March 31.
  • 3 people rendered to El Salvador as part of a group of 10 on April 13. Names are unknown. We only know it was 3 people because El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, tweeted on April 20 that 252 Venezuelans are in Salvadoran custody. As 245 Venezuelans were already in El Salvador, that would mean that 7 of the 10 were Venezuelan, leaving 3 Salvadorans.

Day 17 for the 238 Venezuelans Sent to El Salvador

His head shaved, unable to contact anyone, with no end date to his captivity, Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela whose tattoos commemorate his town’s Epiphany festival, is starting his 17th day deep inside El Salvador’s “Confinement of Terrorism” prison.

And the Trump administration put him there.

Jonathan Blitzer, at the New Yorker, just published a 5,000-word overview of what we know so far.

As part of the White House’s effort to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, ICE officers received a document called the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide,” which provided a point system based on different categories of incriminating behavior or associations. If an immigrant in custody scored six points or higher, according to the rubric, he “may be validated” as a gang member. Tattoos, which fall under the “Symbolism” category, constitute four points; social-media posts “displaying” gang symbols are two points. Using “open source material,” agents at the investigative arm of ICE compiled photos of tattoos considered suspicious: crowns, stars, the Michael Jordan Jumpman logo.

It is shaping up to be an “Abu Ghraib” or “family separation” level of stain on the United States, and there’s no resolution yet. On Thursday afternoon, the judge overseeing litigation about this use of the “Alien Enemies Act” will hold a hearing requiring the Trump administration “to show cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders.”

Whoops, Forgot About the Venezuelan Invasion

Today in the House Intelligence Committee, top agency chiefs presented their “Annual Worldwide Threats Assessment.”

But something weird happened. Their 31-page document made zero mention of any “predatory incursion” from Venezuela’s government, in league with the Tren de Aragua criminal group.

That incursion, the White House told us just 12 days ago, is so severe that it forced President Trump to invoke the 1798 Wartime Renditions Act, I mean, “Alien Enemies Act.”

In fact, the only mention of Venezuela at all—and there are none about the Tren de Aragua—plays up the reduction in arrivals of Venezuelan migrants.

Imagine, forgetting all about being invaded, even as the White House insists that it’s happening. It’s almost as though the U.S. intelligence community doesn’t see any invasions or incursions happening, either.

(cc: Judge James Boasberg and U.S. Supreme Court justices)

WOLA Podcast: The Alien Enemies Act

Here’s a half-hour podcast with a slightly different format. Because it’s mostly about migration, which I work on at WOLA, I do most of the talking. WOLA, though, also has experts on Venezuela, Laura Dib, and El Salvador, Ana María Méndez Dardón, who answer some of my questions here.

Here is the text of the podcast landing page on WOLA’s website:

On March 15, 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for only the fourth time in U.S. history. The target, this time, is citizens of Venezuela. His administration sent hundreds out of the country, and into a Salvadoran prison, on mere suspicion of ties to a criminal organization, the Tren de Aragua.

In this explainer episode recorded on March 21, with help from WOLA’s Venezuela Director Laura Dib and Central America Director Ana María Méndez Dardón, Defense Oversight Director Adam Isacson walks through what has happened over the past six dark days in U.S. history.

  • The Alien Enemies Act did not use any standard of due process, and many of those sent out of the country, it is now very apparent, were documented in the United States and were not guilty of anything. All it took was for U.S. agents to decide that they did not like the way these young men looked.
  • The Trump administration ignored a clear order from a federal judge to turn the planes around and is now resisting that judge’s demands for information. The result is one of the most severe constitutional crises in U.S. history, which is unresolved as of March 21st.
  • Rather than simply deport them, the planes took 238 citizens of Venezuela straight to El Salvador, where authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele took them straight to a notorious mega-prison where those inside are cut off from the outside world and never seem to emerge.

This alarming story is far from over, but this episode lays out some of the most pertinent facts and context in half an hour.

Download this podcast episode’s .mp3 file here. Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Who Did the Trump Administration Just Send to El Salvador’s Dungeons?

The list below is an excerpt from tomorrow’s Border Update, which I’m still drafting. But it deserves to be shared separately.

On March 20 CBS News obtained and published a full list of all 238 Venezuelan men whom the Trump administration sent to El Salvador on March 15, despite a judge’s orders. It appears that 137 had no due process at all—they were sent under the fourth-ever invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The other 101 apparently had orders of removal.

But even though none committed any crimes in El Salvador, the government of Nayib Bukele sent them directly to the “Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT),” a mega-jail built about two years ago to hold gang members, from which no prisoner is known to have been released.

For many of their loved ones, the CBS list was the first confirmation of their whereabouts. “Family members of the men say they’ve had no way to communicate with their loved ones,” noted Jonathan Lemire and Nick Miroff at the Atlantic, “So they study the [Salvadoran government’s] propaganda videos for glimpses of sons and spouses among the deportees.”

Here are profiles that I’ve seen of 15 of them, with links to sources. They really do not seem to be gang members at all.

  • Gustavo Adolfo Aguilera Agüero, 27, had been living in Dallas with his wife since December 2023, when they entered the United States with a CBP One appointment. In early February 2025, Aguilera was arrested while taking out the trash outside their home, his wife told the Miami Herald. He has a nine-month-old U.S. citizen son. His tattoos include his older, Venezuelan-born son’s name, his name and his mother’s name, and a reggaeton lyric. His mother says he has no criminal record.
  • ”JABV,” a 24-year-old who was abducted and beaten for carrying out campaign work on behalf of opposition leader María Corina Machado in 2024. His attorney stated that he has no criminal record in either the United States or Venezuela, no removal order, and “his tattoos are a Rose, a Clock and a Crown with his son’s name on it.”
  • Franco Caraballo, a 26-year-old barber detained in Dallas on February 3 when he reported to a regular check-in with ICE. His wife, Johanny Sánchez, insists he has no gang ties. “She struggles even to find logic in the accusation,” the Associated Press reported. Caraballo has several tattoos, including an image of a clock commemorating his daughter’s birthday. He had called Ms. Sánchez on the evening of March 14, Reuters reported, to tell her that he was probably being deported to Venezuela even though he had a pending asylum claim.
  • ”L.G.,” who has no removal order and a pending asylum claim. His attorney stated, “L.G. has three tattoos: one is a rosary, the other is his partner’s name, and the third is a rose and a clock.”
  • Edwuar Hernández, a 23-year-old man from Maracaibo, was arrested along with three friends at the Dallas townhouse they shared on March 13. Relatives tell the Washington Post that he had no gang ties and no criminal record in Venezuela. (See the narrative for Mervyn Yamarte below.)
  • Francisco Javier García Casique, a 24-year-old barber from Maracay, Venezuela, had a clean criminal record. He tried to make a living in Peru for four years before migrating to the United States. “He doesn’t belong to any criminal gang, either in the US or in Venezuela… he’s not a criminal,” his mother told the BBC. “My brother doesn’t belong to any criminal group, has no criminal history or record in any country and they have unjustly sent him to El Salvador simply because of his tattoos,” the Guardian reported that his brother wrote on Instagram.
  • Ali David Navas Vizcaya, who was detained in early 2024 when appearing for an appointment with ICE. His mother told AP “he has no criminal record and suspects he may have been mistakenly identified as a Tren de Aragua member because of several tattoos.”
  • Andy Javier Perozo, a 30-year-old father of five from Maracaibo who was doing food delivery gig work, was arrested along with three friends at the Dallas townhouse they shared on March 13. Relatives tell the Washington Post that he had no gang ties and no criminal record in Venezuela. (See the narrative for Mervyn Yamarte below.)
  • Jerce Reyes Barrios, a 36-year-old former professional soccer player who was imprisoned and tortured after marching in two early-2024 demonstrations against the Maduro regime. Reyes has a tattoo of the Real Madrid soccer team’s logo and had a picture of himself in his social media feed making a rock-and-roll hand gesture that DHS officials decided was a gang sign. He had already submitted a document showing he had no criminal record and a declaration from the tattoo artist, to no avail. He has two daughters, aged two and six.
  • Ringo Rincón, a 39-year-old man from Maracaibo, was arrested along with three friends at the Dallas townhouse they shared on March 13. Relatives tell the Washington Post that he had no gang ties and no criminal record in Venezuela. (See the narrative for Mervyn Yamarte below.)
  • Anyelo Jose Sarabia, age 19, is an asylum seeker detained during a scheduled January 31, 2025 check-in with ICE in Dallas. His brother’s statement reads, “The tattoo on his left hand is of a rose with money as petals. A picture of the tattoo is below. He had that tattoo done in August 2024 in Arlington, Texas, because he thought it looked cool.” (His sister said something similar to Reuters.) Another tattoo is the words “strength and courage,” and another is a bible verse; both were applied by Anyelo’s brother, who has no criminal record in the United States or Venezuela.
  • ”E.V.,” who fled Venezuela after being imprisoned and tortured for participating in a 2022 protest. His attorney said he “has only one arrest in the U.S., which resolved with a non-criminal disposition under New York state law and for which he received a sentence of a one-year conditional discharge.” He has “tattoos of anime, flowers, and animals.”
  • Henry Javier Vargas Lugo, a 32-year-old, had been living and working odd jobs in Aurora, Colorado after trying to make a living as a mechanic in Colombia for seven years. He entered the United States with his mother and daughter. “He has several tattoos, including crowns with his niece and mother’s name, a clock on his arm and a rosary,” the Miami Herald reported.
  • Mervyn Yamarte, a 29-year-old who entered the United States in 2023 after passing through the Darién Gap and lived in Dallas, is “‘a good, hardworking boy’ who had never been involved in crime,” his mother told the Guardian and the BBC. His wife said the same to the Washington Post, which reported that armed ICE officers showed up on March 13 at the townhouse where he and three friends from Maracaibo had been living, and hauled them away. Yamarte’s younger brother witnessed the arrest; he said that the agents asked whether he had tattoos. One of Mervyn Yamarte’s tattoos is his daughter’s name. Another reads, “strong like Mom.” Yamarte appears—shaved, wincing, but recognizable—in the video shared by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on March 16.
  • An unnamed client of Lindsay Toczylowski, an attorney at the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), is an LGBTQ+ artist and asylum seeker whose tattoos included a verse from the Book of Isaiah. “They’re fairly benign. Clearly not gang tattoos,” Toczylowski told Mother Jones. “In my 15 years of representing people in removal proceedings in the United States, this is the most shocking thing that I’ve ever seen happen to one of our clients,” she told the Guardian.

That’s Not How This Works, Chief

You’ve probably seen it, but we should keep raising up what an ICE official actually wrote to a federal court on Monday:

Regarding all of the Venezuelan men shipped off to Nayib Bukele’s mega-prison without proof of criminal behavior: “The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose.”

“TdA” is the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan organized crime group whose true strength and influence are a matter of debate. In his sworn statement to a federal court, the acting director of ICE’s Harlingen, Texas field office, Robert L. Cerna, is imputing individuals’ associations with Tren de Aragua without even bothering to prove them.

And the notion that “the less we know about you, the scarier you must be, so you have no rights” is as dangerous as it is unhinged.

Just a Monumental, Tragic, Stupid Screwup

Click on the photo to enlarge in a new window.

Here are photos of some of the young Venezuelan men whom the Trump administration sent to El Salvador’s terror prison on Saturday. With no chance to defend their good name. On the merest suspicion of membership in a criminal group.

Their relatives say it’s all false. It’s looking like a monumental, tragic screwup. Get them out and at least give them a hearing.

The captions and sources, clockwise from top left:

  • Mervin Jose Yamarte Fernandez, 29, is one of 238 Venezuelans accused by the Trump administration of gang affiliation and sent over the weekend to El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center. His sister recognized him in a video shared on social media, where masked guards shaved the detainees’ heads and escorted them into cells at the maximum-security facility. As the camera panned across the scene, Yamarte slowly turned his gaze toward it. (Yamarte’s family / Miami Herald)
  • Gustavo Adolfo Aguilera Agüero, 26, from the Venezuelan Andes in Táchira, had been living in Dallas with his wife since December 2023. In early February, Aguilera Agüero was detained by authorities while taking out the trash, according to his wife. Authorities were actually searching for someone else, but Aguilera Agüero spent several weeks in detention, awaiting deportation to Venezuela. Now, his mother, Miriam Aguilera, fears her son may be among the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador. (Aguilera’s family / Miami Herald)
  • Franco Caraballo, 26, a Venezuelan migrant whose family believes he was sent from the United States to a prison in El Salvador, takes a selfie with his wife Johanny Sanchez, in this undated handout picture provided by his family. (Franco Caraballo’s Family/Handout via REUTERS)
  • Henry Javier Vargas, 32, originally from Vargas state on Venezuela’s coast, had been living in Aurora, Colorado, for nearly a year when he was detained on January 29. Prior to migrating to the U.S., Vargas spent seven years in Colombia, working as a mechanic in Bogotá. Vargas’s family was able to identify him in a video posted by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, showing the detainees arriving in El Salvador. In the footage, his hands are shackled, and his head is bowed in a moment of despair (Vargas’s family / Miami Herald)
  • Ringo Rincón was living in Dallas when he was arrested. His girlfriend says she believes he has been taken to a prison in El Salvador with his roommates. (Roslyany Caamaño / The Washington Post)
  • Francisco García, a barber, with one of his customers. (Photo courtesy of Sebastián García / El Estímulo).
  • Andy Javier Perozo with his mom, Erkia Palencia, and a note wishing her happy birthday. (Courtesy of Erkia Palencia / The Washington Post)

Arrested at Home in Dallas on Thursday. In a Salvadoran Gulag by Saturday.

Four men from Maracaibo, Venezuela “were eking out a new life in Dallas, where they worked long hours and shared a townhouse. Then, on Thursday, armed officers showed up at their home, arrested them and took them to a Texas detention center,” reads a startling report from Silvia Foster-Frau in today’s Washington Post.

Mervin’s younger brother, Jonferson Yamarte, had arrived in Texas. He witnessed the arrests but was not detained and described them to The Post.

He said armed immigration officers were in his living room when he woke up. They asked him to sit down, requested his name and then inquired whether he had tattoos. Scholars and journalists who have studied Tren de Aragua say tattoos are not a reliable indicator of membership in the gang. Relatives of several Venezuelan men whom the Trump administration described as Tren de Aragua members sent to Guantánamo in February also said immigration agents had focused on tattoos. Their relatives denied that their loved ones had ties to the gang.

For four Venezuelan friends, Alien Enemies Act cuts short an American dream

Timeline of What Appears to be Defiance of a Judicial Order: Applying the Alien Enemies Act to Venezuelans Sent to El Salvador’s Prisons Without Due Process

On social media this morning I underwent a messy process of trying to piece together the timeline of what happened yesterday, as the Trump administration raced to get 238 Venezuelan citizens on planes headed straight for El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s prison system before a federal judge could stop them from using the Alien Enemies Act for that purpose.

The timeline does show that the planes landed well after Washington DC Federal District Judge James E. Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to stop that from happening. Social media is not a great place to explain that as new information emerges, because one can’t edit earlier posts.

Here is a timeline, last edited at 1:30PM Eastern on Tuesday, March 18. (I’ll change that time if I make further updates.)

  • Sometime Friday March 14: President Trump issues an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, for the fourth time in US history, to allow the swift removal of Venezuelan citizens, regardless of migratory status, accused of membership in the Tren de Aragua criminal group. The Alien Enemies Act is meant to be a wartime jurisdiction, to be invoked at times of declared war, foreign invasion, or foreign “predatory incursion.” It includes no due process rights for those detained or deported, and the U.S. government is not required to prove a tie to Tren de Aragua. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who has imprisoned nearly 3 percent of his country’s male population, offered on February 3 to jail non-Salvadorans whom the Trump administration sent to El Salvador.
  • Saturday, March 15: The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward seek a temporary restraining order to halt invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The case is docketed as J.G.G. vs. Donald Trump.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 3:10pm and 3:40pm Eastern: Two ICE charter flights flown by contractor GlobalX are to leave Harlingen, Texas for San Salvador. These will be delayed. These weekend ICE flights are unusual.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 3:51pm Eastern: according to the page’s timestamp, the White House posts the executive order to its website.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 4:13pm Eastern: A third ICE charter flight flown by GlobalX is to leave Harlingen, Texas for Comayagua, Honduras. It, too, will be delayed.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 5:00pm Eastern: Judge Boasberg convenes a hearing in the J.G.G. vs. Trump case.
  • Saturday, March 15 at ~5:20pm Eastern: Judge Boasberg adjourns the hearing until 6:00pm to give the Department of Justice time to confirm whether flights carrying people under the Alien Enemies Act are underway or may depart soon.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 5:26pm Eastern: GlobalX flight 6143 departs Harlingen, Texas but its destination has changed to Comayagua, Honduras.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 5:45pm Eastern: GlobalX flight 6145 departs Harlingen, Texas; while the FlightAware app said it was heading for San Salvador, there is an alternate flight plan for Comayagua, Honduras. Subsequent reporting shows that this and the two other planes went to Comayagua: none flew directly to San Salvador. It is not clear why they made this stop en route.

  • Saturday, March 15 at ~6:05 Eastern: In a private aside, the Department of Justice apparently fails to confirm anything about flights to Judge Boasberg.
  • Saturday, March 15 at ~6:47pm Eastern: Judge Boasberg issues a temporary restraining order blocking application of the Alien Enemies Act. The New York Times reported: “Judge Boasberg said he was ordering the government to turn flights around given ‘information, unrebutted by the government, that flights are actively departing.’”
  • Saturday, March 15 at 7:26pm Eastern: A March 16 Justice Department notice refers to a “7:26 PM minute order” from Judge Boasberg.

At this point, all flights should have stopped or turned around.


  • Saturday, March 15 at 7:36pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6143 did not turn around: it lands in Comayagua, Honduras.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 7:37pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6122 departs Harlingen for Comayagua, Honduras.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 8:07pm Eastern: There are two flight plans filed for GlobalX Flight 6145. The one that turned out to be correct listed the plane landing at this time in Comayagua, Honduras.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 9:46pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6122 lands in Comayagua, Honduras.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 11:39pm Eastern: A Washington Post timeline shows a plane departing Comayagua, Honduras at 11:39pm.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 11:41pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6144 departs Comayagua, Honduras for San Salvador, El Salvador.

  • Sunday, March 16 at 12:06am Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6144 lands in San Salvador.
  • Sunday, March 16 at 12:10am Eastern: A Washington Post timeline shows a flight from Comayagua landing in San Salvador.
  • Sunday, March 16 at 12:41am Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6123 departs Comayagua, Honduras for San Salvador, El Salvador.

  • Sunday, March 16 at 1:04am Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6123 lands in San Salvador.
  • Sunday, March 16 at 7:46am Eastern: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweets a screenshotted New York Post headline, “Fed judge orders deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gangbangers to return to US” with the comment “Oopsie… Too late 😂.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweets this. (This timeline indicates that the judge was not, in fact, “too late.”)
  • Sunday, March 16 at 8:13am Eastern: Bukele posts footage of people arriving and being dragged off of planes by security forces in riot gear, then roughly herded into his government’s giant Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison. “Today,” Bukele writes, “the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable). The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.”
Salvadoran government handout photo reproduced at the Washington Post.

  • Sunday, March 16 at 8:39am Eastern: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweets, “Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele.”
  • Sunday, March 16 at 3:46 PM Eastern: An Axios article by Marc Caputo reports that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem chose not to turn the planes around. Officials claimed to Caputo that they could ignore Judge Boasberg’s order because the planes were already over international waters. A correction added to the story reads, “This story was updated with the White House official’s claim that the administration had ignored the ruling but not defied it, because it came too late.” (This timeline makes clear that the order did not come too late.
  • Monday, March 17 during the 5:00PM hour, Eastern: Appearing before Judge Boasburg, Department of Justice attorneys refuse to answer basic questions about the flights detailed in this timeline.
  • Tuesday, March 18 mid-day: Acting ICE Harlingen Field Office Director Robert L. Cerna submits a statement to the court affirming that two of the flights were carrying all of the Venezuelans removed under the Alien Enemies Act proclamation, and that both were in the air by 7:25 PM on March 16, a minute before Judge Boasberg’s temporary restraining order appeared in writing. The statement seems to assume that the planes could not be called back once in the air, once over international waters, or once on the ground in Honduras—not their final destination—while still carrying out an ICE contract. These assumptions are far from settled.

WOLA Podcast: Authoritarianism, Resistance, and Repression: What’s Next for Venezuela?

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro got himself sworn into office again 2 weeks ago, despite losing an election, riding a wave of repression. WOLA’s latest podcast episode is a situation report from my colleague Laura Dib, who runs our Venezuela program.

Here’s the text of the podcast landing page at wola.org.

The director of WOLA’s Venezuela Program, Laura Dib, joins the podcast to discuss the political, human rights, and diplomatic reality following Nicolás Maduro’s January 10 inauguration. Maduro’s new term begins amid severe tensions, as he plainly lost July 28, 2024 presidential elections and has employed waves of repression, including rounding up and in some cases forcibly disappearing political prisoners, to deny the result.

Despite the context of repression and intimidation, Laura underscores that on January 9 Venezuelans still took part in 157 reported protests, including one with the participation of opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is in hiding. The response was further crackdowns, including the temporary detention of María Corina, the enforced disappearance of the son in law of the election’s true winner Edmundo González Urrutia, and the enforced disappearance of Carlos Correa, director of NGO Espacio Público, who was recently released after being missing for nine days.

With repression worsening and space closing for civil society—particularly through implementation of a harsh new NGO law—it is difficult to perceive a path forward. Laura emphasizes, however, the remaining areas of hope; possible cracks within the ruling coalition, significant consensus within the international community, and the persistent bravery of Venezuela’s civil society and diaspora. Laura acknowledges the complexities of the deep-rooted corruption and private sector ties that make Maduro’s hermetic regime difficult to assess and counter.

She also discusses the confused and contradictory nature of the new Trump administration’s likely approach to Venezuela. A transactionally minded president uninterested in democracy promotion is leading a group of officials with different, and potentially clashing, priorities: some are staunchly “anti-communist” but others are focused on stopping migration and enabling deportations to Venezuela.

Laura also discusses the complexities of sanctions, economic collapse, and Venezuela’s relations with its neighbors. The episode ends with a strong call for the international community to focus its efforts on supporting Venezuelan civil society and preserving the civic space that exists.

For more up-to-date information, read Laura Dib’s commentary “Venezuela: Authoritarianism and Resistance”; a commentary by Carolina Jiménez, President of WOLA, “Venezuela between repression and resistance,” and watch WOLA’s recent event, “Autoritarismo y Resistencia: Análisis de la Situación en Venezuela.”

Download this podcast episode’s .mp3 file here. Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

WOLA Podcast: “The Scrutiny Should Be Public to All Citizens:” the aftermath of Venezuela’s July election

Months of negotiations about how elections would be held. Weeks of tense campaigning. A day of enormous turnout. And in the end, Venezuela’s election authority, which is controlled by the current government, pulled out some unsubstantiated numbers claiming that Nicolás Maduro was re-elected. As though that were the end of this story.

It’s obviously not, and 36 hours had not yet passed between the polls’ closing and the recording of this podcast. But Laura Dib, who runs WOLA’s Venezuela program, and I wanted to get this out quickly. It’s a clear explainer of where things stand and what needs to happen now.

Here’s the text from WOLA’s podcast landing page:

Laura Cristina Dib, WOLA’s director for Venezuela, discusses the aftermath of the Venezuelan elections that took place on July 28, 2024, as new developments continue to come to light. WOLA continues to monitor the situation.

Laura describes what we know up to this point:

  • Six hours after the polls closed, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) declared authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro the winner by a 51 to 44 percent margin, but did not provide any breakdown of the vote, neither by state nor by voting station as the law requires.
  • The official process of transmitting the votes to the CNE by official poll supervisors was not completed before announcing Maduro’s victory. Nor was the process of CNE verification.
  • The official tally sheets with voting stations’ counts—the product of an automated, digital process—were not released, making impossible the lawful process of public scrutiny.
  • The opposition announced they secured 73 percent of the voting stations’ counts, indicating 2.7 million votes for Maduro and 6.2 million votes for opposition candidate Edmundo González.
  • As of the morning of July 30, there have been 187 protests in 20 states in the previous 12 hours, and 20 verified cases of new arbitrary detentions, one disappearance, 5 homicides, and 1 case of harassment.
  • On July 30, the Carter Center’s election observers delayed publication of their preliminary report, likely to allow its personnel to exit the country first.
  • Independent polling showed a widespread desire to migrate away from Venezuela if the election fails to unseat Maduro.

While civil society organizations including WOLA have, for months, warned about the lack of transparency in Venezuela’s election process, adding that they would not be free and fair, Laura urges the international community to resist “Venezuela fatigue” and “keep their eye on Venezuela.” She calls on governments and international civil society to keep demanding transparency in the election results, as a number of countries have already done, including the United States, Brazil, and Colombia, and to encourage an independent observer to verify the results.

In the lead up to the election, WOLA published commentaries Political Scenarios in Venezuela: Transition on the Horizon?, Four Takeaways on Electoral Conditions Ahead of Venezuela’s 2024 Presidential Election, and a Youtube video series discussing the electoral process.

Download this podcast episode’s .mp3 file here. Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Darién Gap Migration through May 2024

After increasing at the beginning of 2024, migration through the Darién Gap has declined somewhat, settling at about 1,000 people per day.

Last month (May), 69 percent of migrants passing through the treacherous jungle region were Venezuelan. In fact, Venezuelans now make up 50 percent of all migrants who’ve passed through the Darién Gap since 2010, when Panama started keeping and publishing records.

Between January 2022 and May 2024, 588,872 citizens of Venezuela journeyed through the Darién. Venezuela had about 30 million people in the mid-2010s when the nation’s exodus began—so fully 2 percent of Venezuela’s population has made the jungle journey since the pandemic’s end.

Colombia for the first time was the Darién Gap’s second-place nationality in May. Haiti, Ecuador, and China are dropping. India and Peru are up.

At a Migration Conference in Medellín

Here are a few things I learned from fellow panelists at today’s sessions of a migration conference at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín.

Me (back, 2nd from left) with some of the conferencistas.

  • The largest number of people traveling through the Darién Gap get their information about the migration route through word of mouth, followed by WhatsApp, followed by other social media, followed by more reliable sources like humanitarian groups.
  • Of all major Colombian cities, Medellín is where business owners report being least willing to hire migrants.
  • In Medellín’s north-central Moravia neighborhood, organized crime demands larger extortion payments from Venezuelan small business owners than from Colombians. Most Venezuelans in the neighborhood do not intend to stay in Colombia: they either want to return to Venezuela if things improve, or they plan to move on. So they tend to choose not to mix into community life.
Poor hillside neighborhoods in northeast Medellín’s Comuna 3.

  • Among Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, there is a strong correlation between being a woman and the likelihood of being a victim of violence, including sexual violence.
  • Many Venezuelan LGBTQ+ migrants are fleeing attacks and discrimination, especially trans people who have it very bad there. But they more often cite “sexual liberation” or the availability of medical treatments, like HIV retrovirals, as their reasons for coming to Colombia.
  • Armed and criminal groups causing a lot of displacement and cross-border migration along Colombia’s remote southeast border with Venezuela and Brazil include FARC dissidents’ 10th front, the ELN, Brazil’s Garimpeiros, Venezuelan “sindicatos,” and Venezuela’s armed forces. All are profiting from illicit precious-metals mining and other environmentally disastrous practices, principally on the Venezuelan side of the border and usually in Indigenous territories. States are either absent, or part of the problem.
An ibis crosses my path at the University of Antioquia.

Hallway graffiti at the University reminds us to “unite under Maoism” and “down with revisionism.”

A Big Drop in Venezuelan Migration This Year—But Only in the United States

Mexico just posted its February migration numbers… there must be a huge number of people from Venezuela bottled up in Mexico right now.

2024 numbers from PanamaHonduras (change the dates in search)Mexico (click on “Personas en situación migratoria irregular” then Table 3.1.1) – U.S. (CBP / my search of CBP numbers for 2024)

Rocío San Miguel, now a political prisoner, discusses politicization of Venezuela’s military in 2010

I don’t get to work on Venezuela very often, but I did get to record a conversation in 2010 with activist and civil-military relations expert Rocío San Miguel. Here’s an excerpt where we discussed the military’s politicization.

Rocío was arrested last Friday in Caracas. Authorities are accusing her of terrorism and treason, which is as horrifying as it is absurd.

Darién Gap Migration Dipped in October

Fresh numbers from Panama show a 35 percent drop, from September to October, in the number of people migrating through the Darién Gap. The main cause was a 41 percent decline in the number of citizens of Venezuela (blue in the chart) who traveled through the treacherous jungle region.

Monthly Migration Through Panama’s Darién Gap

October 2023: Venezuela 70%, Haiti (plus Brazil and Chile) 8%, China 6.0%, Ecuador 5.8%, Colombia 4%, all others <2%

Since January 2020: Venezuela 53%, Haiti (plus Brazil and Chile) 22%, Ecuador 10%, Cuba 3%, all others <3%

	Venezuela	Haiti (plus Brazil and Chile)	Ecuador	Cuba	Colombia	China	India	Afghanistan	Bangladesh	Other Countries
20-Jan	9	1332	11	48			7		16	115
20-Feb	20	1535	4	45	2		9		48	162
20-Mar	3	972	6	16	2		7		10	83
20-Apr		0								0
20-May		0								0
20-Jun	2	135	1	12			5		10	17
20-Jul		0								0
20-Aug		0			1	3				2
20-Sep	5	84			2					17
20-Oct	5	315	2		2					47
20-Nov	3	313	7	1	1				2	38
20-Dec	22	645	9	123	11		11		37	113
21-Jan	3	720	3	176	8		3		38	120
21-Feb	9	1231	2	205	7				90	313
21-Mar		2193	14	198	1	2	30		15	241
21-Apr	3	3818	12	1306			102		127	497
21-May	113	2180	5	1514			44		118	488
21-Jun	205	6527	9	2770	4		44		131	577
21-Jul	248	15488	19	2354	8		34		210	452
21-Aug	568	21285	22	2857	8		1		128	463
21-Sep	437	22473	48	1566	31	3	40		102	805
21-Oct	339	20626	88	3018	29	11	65		325	1403
21-Nov	352	3595	65	1639	18	22	158		222	1691
21-Dec	542	936	100	997	55	39	71		151	1303
22-Jan	1421	807	100	367	48	32	67	1	70	1789
22-Feb	1573	627	156	334	72	39	74	3	81	1303
22-Mar	1704	658	121	361	59	56	88	40	201	1539
22-Apr	2694	785	181	634	72	59	172	31	126	1380
22-May	9844	997	527	567	248	67	179	67	254	1144
22-Jun	11359	1025	555	416	287	66	228	82	210	1405
22-Jul	17066	1245	883	574	407	85	431	162	236	1733
22-Aug	23632	1921	1581	589	569	119	332	128	150	2083
22-Sep	38399	2642	2594	490	1306	136	350	180	189	1918
22-Oct	40593	4525	8487	663	1600	274	604	551	143	2333
22-Nov	668	5520	6350	535	208	377	813	379	176	1606
22-Dec	1374	6535	7821	431	188	695	756	596	48	1853
23-Jan	2337	12063	6352	142	333	913	562	291	127	1514
23-Feb	7097	7813	5203	36	637	1285	872	276	132	1306
23-Mar	20816	8335	2772	35	1260	1657	1109	359	87	1669
23-Apr	25395	5832	2683	59	1634	1683	446	386	77	2102
23-May	26409	3633	3059	59	1645	1497	161	192	148	2159
23-Jun	18501	1743	5052	74	894	1722	65	217	185	1269
23-Jul	38033	1548	9773	123	1884	1789	96	321	243	1577
23-Aug	62700	1992	8642	172	2989	2433	27	467	159	2365
23-Sep	58716	3176	4744	166	2570	2588	43	609	260	2396
23-Oct	34594	3958	2849	97	2051	2934	36	400	200	2137

Data table

2023 is still—by far—a record-breaking year for Darién Gap migration, though. 458,228 people migrated through the region during the first 10 months of the year, making it certain that the year-end total will surpass 500,000. 294,598 of this year’s migrants (64 percent, blue in the chart) have been Venezuelan.

Annual Migration Through Panama’s Darién Gap

2023: Venezuela 64%, Ecuador 11.2%, Haiti (plus Brazil and Chile) 10.9%, China 4%, Colombia 3%, All Others <1%

Since 2010: Venezuela 47%, Haiti (plus Brazil and Chile) 22%, Ecuador 8%, Cuba 7%, Colombia 2.24%, China 2.18%,  All Others <2%

	Venezuela	Haiti (plus Brazil and Chile)	Ecuador	Cuba	Colombia	China	India	Nepal	Bangladesh	Other Countries
2010		0		79		268	12	29	53	118
2011		1	15	18	65	9	11	9	45	110
2012		0	18	1154	24	11	48	213	89	220
2013		2	4	2010	26	1		297	398	313
2014		2	1	5026	9		1	468	377	291
2015	2	8	14	24623	32	1	1	2426	559	1623
2016	6	16742	93	7383	16		20	1619	580	3601
2017	18	40	50	736	36	6	1127	2138	506	2119
2018	65	420	51	329	13		2962	868	1525	2988
2019	78	10490	31	2691	23		1920	254	911	5704
2020	69	5331	40	245	21	3	39	56	123	538
2021	2819	101072	387	18600	169	77	592	523	1657	7830
2022	150327	27287	29356	5961	5064	2005	4094	1631	1884	20675
2023 (Oct)	294598	50093	51129	963	15897	18501	3417	2035	1618	19977

Data table

Data from the United States and Honduras also show sharp drops in migration from Venezuela. The cause appears to be U.S. and Venezuelan governments’ October 5 announcement that they would be renewing deportation flights to Caracas. Though these flights are proving to be relatively infrequent so far, the mere possibility of being sent all the way back to Venezuela seems to have led many Venezuelan citizens considering migration to “wait and see” and delay their plans.

Honduras is the country that reports in-transit migration in the most current manner. Looking at weekly migration through Honduras shows a possible recovery in Venezuelan migration (blue) during the first full week of November. However, a single week’s data don’t necessarily point to a trend. Here is migration of citizens of Venezuela during each week between September 1 and November 9.

“Irregular” Migrants from Venezuela and Haiti Registered in Honduras by Week, September-Early November 2023

	Venezuela	Haiti
Week of 9/1-9/7	10101	2475
Week of 9/8-9/14	8685	3120
Week of 9/15-9/21	11012	5138
Week of 9/22-9/28	9852	4302
Week of 9/29-10/5	10384	5632
Week of 10/6-10/12	8430	6936
Week of 10/13-10/19	8514	8199
Week of 10/20-10/26	7154	11356
Week of 10/27-11/2	4866	5141
Week of 11/3-11/9	8199	1242

The chart also shows citizens of Haiti (green), whose numbers rose then fell during the same period. The recent drop owes to the Haitian government, at strong U.S. suggestion, banning charter flights to Nicaragua at the end of October.

Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border Dropped 11 Percent from September to October

All CBP (Border Patrol Plus Port of Entry) Migrant Encounters
by Country at the U.S.-Mexico Border

October 2023: Mexico 26%, Venezuela 17%, Guatemala 10%, Honduras 9%, Colombia 6%, Cuba 5.2%, Ecuador 5.0%, El Salvador 3%, All Others <2%

Since October 2020: Mexico 33%, Honduras 11.2%, Guatemala 11.1%, Venezuela 8%, Cuba 6%, Nicaragua 5%, Colombia 4.5%, All Others <4%

	Mexico	Honduras	Guatemala	Venezuela	Cuba	Nicaragua	Colombia	El Salvador	Ecuador	Other Countries
20-Oct	46786	7370	9292	143	1679	256	26	3014	2220	1143
20-Nov	44164	8199	10323	184	1590	387	69	3650	2765	782
20-Dec	39370	10358	12454	206	2067	640	73	3921	3676	1229
21-Jan	40793	11232	13137	295	1899	534	69	3580	3598	3277
21-Feb	44257	20180	19154	913	3848	706	76	5599	3440	2926
21-Mar	62504	42116	34060	2566	5700	1930	179	9475	5579	9168
21-Apr	65597	38205	30053	6048	3288	3074	260	11043	8079	13148
21-May	70874	32131	26452	7499	2664	4414	408	10462	11691	14002
21-Jun	64908	35033	30246	7583	3072	7435	481	11582	12803	15891
21-Jul	59959	45297	36468	6126	3559	13456	751	12719	17335	17923
21-Aug	56397	42125	37108	6301	4496	9979	1562	12692	17611	21569
21-Sep	59985	27078	24288	10814	4812	7298	2248	10953	7353	37172
21-Oct	66049	21861	19374	13416	5896	9255	3015	9801	748	15422
21-Nov	63846	20105	20469	20388	6605	13627	3368	9664	556	16217
21-Dec	51475	18141	21009	24801	7986	15297	4094	8874	673	26903
22-Jan	60341	12011	13856	22779	9721	11564	3911	5810	602	14279
22-Feb	71850	14075	18215	3073	16557	13296	9608	7146	683	11507
22-Mar	88132	16213	21392	4053	32153	16017	15373	8403	877	19961
22-Apr	82568	15734	19910	4107	34839	12565	13128	8355	1636	42943
22-May	77453	19730	21468	5088	25643	19034	19320	8980	3046	41374
22-Jun	66730	24177	24648	13199	16172	11200	12597	9123	3231	26757
22-Jul	55692	20340	20212	17647	20098	12073	13454	7952	2948	29746
22-Aug	60772	16219	15681	25361	19060	11749	13497	6675	3681	31392
22-Sep	63431	14417	15331	33804	26178	18199	13807	6247	5379	30754
22-Oct	66277	14100	14843	22060	28851	20923	17362	6069	7030	34014
22-Nov	59348	13143	14510	8013	34710	34249	15846	5532	11999	37823
22-Dec	48390	13276	14885	8187	42654	35381	17731	4860	16206	50745
23-Jan	62265	11030	11970	9102	6462	3382	9471	3779	9416	30481
23-Feb	65271	10935	14220	5565	753	636	12851	4719	7372	34308
23-Mar	81307	13355	15293	8320	1316	482	17055	5765	7143	43213
23-Apr	67091	13218	14584	34633	1608	506	17843	4677	6396	51436
23-May	55405	21035	14817	32733	2804	718	18130	5349	6474	49225
23-Jun	49262	15093	10362	20453	2681	417	4705	3182	5105	33296
23-Jul	53928	26023	22127	18958	3668	445	5951	3953	9912	38514
23-Aug	55493	35168	37937	31463	6179	736	8948	6080	13631	37328
23-Sep	53296	27310	34537	66584	10666	1621	13643	7550	15545	38983
23-Oct	63003	21819	23845	40863	12495	3306	13773	7250	12154	42480

Data table

New CBP data for the U.S.-Mexico border is out through October. Combining migrants who came to ports of entry with migrants whom Border Patrol apprehended between the ports of entry, migration fell from 269,735 people in September to 240,988 in October (-11 percent).

Nearly all of the net reduction is citizens of Venezuela, whose numbers fell -39 percent (66,584 in September to 40,863 in October). The Biden administration’s October 5 announcement of resumed deportation flights to Venezuela probably explains the reduction. News of the resumption may have led some would-be migrants to pause their plans.

This drop will probably be short-lived, unless the Biden administration pursues a massive, costly, cruel, and politically absurd blitz of frequent aerial deportation flights to Caracas. (We see no signs of that happening yet.) As I wrote a couple of days ago, it is reasonable to expect Venezuelan migration to recover, as conditions in the country remain dire and as Venezuelans considering migration realize that the probability of aerial deportation is slim.

Haiti Led Nationalities of In-Transit Migration Through Honduras in October

Honduras’s “Irregular” Migrant Encounters (Since August 2022)

October 2023: Haiti 35%, Venezuela 34%, Cuba 17%, Ecuador 4%, Guinea 2.3%, Colombia 2.0%, All Others <2%

Since August 2022: Venezuela 41%, Cuba 17%, Haiti 15%, Ecuador 11%, Colombia 2.1%, All Others <2% 

	Venezuela	Cuba	Haiti	Ecuador	Colombia	China	Senegal	Guinea	Mauritania	Other Countries
22-Aug	10769	6899	836	1583	314	42	118	19	18	2278
22-Sep	11325	5144	863	1685	379	45	135	23	14	2220
22-Oct	14027	5290	1856	5793	723	99	185	30	18	3037
22-Nov	3756	9219	2858	5130	400	186	158	34	38	3857
22-Dec	1923	7225	2518	6557	231	405	87	22	63	4034
23-Jan	1866	2079	5365	4562	296	415	202	72	31	4054
23-Feb	4462	629	4092	5010	449	688	159	97	71	4449
23-Mar	9112	776	2991	2493	624	719	191	90	88	4576
23-Apr	10883	1301	2392	1692	682	985	472	87	87	4350
23-May	11809	2397	1629	2147	654	801	831	277	427	4398
23-Jun	12698	3254	1305	2817	488	1045	390	118	1801	2870
23-Jul	25050	6721	1558	6116	954	980	1398	389	2036	3769
23-Aug	35669	11343	4051	5789	1330	654	1629	1005	1036	3020
23-Sep	42550	19288	14898	4830	2174	570	1066	1762	48	3453
23-Oct	34547	17513	35529	3581	2021	1006	1235	2304	75	4198

Data table

We’ve grown accustomed to Venezuela (blue in this chart) being the number-one nationality of migrants transiting Central America and Mexico to come to the United States. Venezuela has been the number-one country of citizenship of people transiting Honduras during every month since March, and U.S. authorities encountered more migrants from Venezuela than from any other country—including Mexico—at the U.S.-Mexico border in September.

Data from Honduras in October, however, show at least a temporary pause in that trend. Last month, Honduras registered more migrants from Haiti transiting its territory (brown in this chart) than from Venezuela. (A new “Mixed Movements Protection Monitoring” report from UNCHR also notes this trend.)

It was a record month for Honduras’s registries of in-transit migrants from around the world: 102,009 people with “irregular” migratory status registered with the government, a necessary step for a short-term legal status making it possible to board buses to get across the country. Of that number, 35,529 were Haitian and 34,547 were Venezuelan. (271 were recorded as Brazilian and 489 as Chilean; many—probably most—of them were children born to Haitian citizen parents who had been living in those countries.)

Transit of Venezuelan migrants through Honduras fell 19 percent from September to October, from 42,550 to 34,547 people.

A possible reason could be a reaction to the Biden administration’s early October agreement with Venezuela to resume deportation flights to Caracas, news of which may have led some would-be migrants to pause their plans. Aerial deportations are expensive, however, and a charter flight to Venezuela only holds about 100-150 people. It is reasonable to expect Venezuelan migration to recover, as conditions in the country remain dire and as Venezuelans considering migration realize that the probability of aerial deportation is slim.

The sharp increase in Haitian migration appears to owe to a new air route from Haiti to Nicaragua, which does not require that visiting citizens of Haiti obtain a visa in advance (though it charges them a steep fee upon arrival). For more on that, see this good November 6 analysis from the Honduras-based journalism website ContraCorriente.

Venezuela Was the Number-One Nationality of Migrants at the U.S.-Mexico Border in September

For the first month since August 2019, Mexico is not the number-one nationality of migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border. Venezuela, for the first time, was number one.

Chart: All CBP (Border Patrol Plus Port of Entry) Migrant Encounters
by Country at the U.S.-Mexico Border

September 2023: Venezuela 25%, Mexico 20%, Guatemala 13%, Honduras 10%, Ecuador 6%, Colombia 5%, Cuba 4%, El Salvador 3%, All Others <3%
Since October 2020: Mexico 33%, Honduras 11.3%, Guatemala 11.1%, Venezuela 8%, Cuba 6%, Nicaragua 5%, Colombia 4.4%, All Others <4%

Data table

Just-released data show that Border Patrol apprehended 54,833 citizens of Venezuela in the areas between the U.S.-Mexico border’s ports of entry in September, a record for countries other than Mexico, and far more than its apprehensions of 39,773 Mexican citizens in September.

Chart: Border Patrol Apprehensions by Country at the U.S.-Mexico Border

September 2023: Venezuela 25%, Mexico 18%, Guatemala 15%, Honduras 11%, Ecuador 7%, Colombia 6%, El Salvador 3%, All Others <2% 
Since October 2020: Mexico 33%, Guatemala 12.2%, Honduras 11.7%, Venezuela 7%, Cuba 6%, Nicaragua 5.3%, Colombia 4.8%, El Salvador 4.1%, All Others <4%

Data table

At the ports of entry (official border crossings), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 11,751 more Venezuelan citizens, most of them asylum seekers who had made appointments using the CBP One smartphone app. (In September, of 50,972 people who made it onto U.S. soil at ports of entry, CBP reports that about 43,000—84 percent—had CBP One appointments.) Mexico, with 13,523 citizens encountered, was still the number-one nationality at the ports of entry.

Chart: CBP Port of Entry Migrant Encounters by Country at the U.S.-Mexico Border

September 2023: Mexico 27%, Venezuela 23%, Cuba 19%, Haiti 9%, Honduras 7%, Russia 3%, Colombia 2%, All Others <2% 
Since October 2020: Mexico 38%, Haiti 15%, Venezuela 10%, Honduras 8.4%, Russia 8.3%, Cuba 4%, All Others <4%

Data Table

Add together the ports of entry and the areas between them, and Venezuela was the number-one nationality in September with 66,584 migrant encounters. Mexico was the number-two nationality, with 53,296. No other nationality came close; Guatemala was in third place with 34,537.

September marked the end of the U.S. government’s 2023 fiscal year. For decades, CBP has reported its migrant encounters by fiscal year, so we now have a “year-end” comparison, at least for Border Patrol apprehensions between the ports of entry. Using this metric—which may include some double-counting, with the same migrant being apprehended two or more times—we find that 2023 was the number-two year ever for Border Patrol migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border. Only 2022 was higher.

Data table

Only 28 percent of migrants apprehended at the Mexico border in fiscal 2023 were citizens of Mexico. Since 2000, 67 percent of migrants apprehended at the border have been Mexican citizens.

(Note: at GitHub, I’ve updated the tool I use to make these and many other migration charts, with data going back to October 2019. I use it all the time, feel free to run a version of your own. It does require you to know how to run a free web server on your computer; I don’t make it public because generating a table with 48 months and 20 countries makes a web server work very hard.)

What a Difference 15 Days Make

September 20, 2023

Extraordinary and temporary conditions continue to prevent Venezuelan nationals from returning in safety. …Venezuela continues to face a severe humanitarian emergency due to a political and economic crisis, as well as human rights violations and abuses and high levels of crime and violence, that impacts access to food, medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, and fuel, and has led to high levels of poverty.

October 5, 2023

The United States is announcing today that it will resume direct repatriations of Venezuelan nationals who cross our border unlawfully and do not establish a legal basis to remain. This announcement follows a decision by authorities from Venezuela to accept the return of Venezuelan nationals.

Venezuelan Citizens Set Record for Non-Mexican Migration at the U.S.-Mexico border

CBS News reported new information about Venezuelan migration at the U.S.-Mexico border in September, from preliminary U.S. government data:

Approximately 50,000 migrants from crisis-stricken Venezuela crossed the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully last month, a record and once-unthinkable number, according to preliminary Department of Homeland Security statistics obtained by CBS News.

According to my records (U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s public monthly reporting by citizenship is spotty before the mid-2010s), 50,000 Venezuelan citizens is the greatest-ever number of migrants in a single month at the U.S.-Mexico border from any country other than Mexico. For non-Mexican migrants, the closest numbers I see in the past are 45,201 citizens of Guatemala in May 2019, and 45,297 citizens of Honduras in July 2021.

Charted out, that September number would look like this. The blue part, which more than doubled from August to September, is Venezuelan migrants who crossed the border between ports of entry, ending up in Border Patrol custody. We still don’t know the additional green part for September, which shows migrants who came to ports of entry, usually with “CBP One” appointments (9,373 Venezuelan citizens in August).

Chart: Citizens of Venezuela: CBP Encounters At and Between Ports of Entry

Using numbers in the linked data table, shows monthly Venezuelan migrants since October 2019 as columns. Venezuelan migrants are a few hundred per month at most until February and March 2021, then rise above 30,000 in 3 months between September 2022 and May 2023. They rise above 30,000 in August, then reach the estimated 50,000 in September—without including those who come to ports of entry, which hasn't been reported yet.

Data table without the September estimate added

Heavy U.S.-bound movement of Venezuelan citizens continues through the Darién Gap, Central America, and Mexico. If arrivals continue at this pace, calls to “do something” about the situation causing so many Venezuelans to migrate will proliferate. Within a few months, Venezuela could be right up there—after perhaps Ukraine and the South China Sea—among the Biden administration’s top foreign policy priorities going into an election year.

Humanitarian Parole Recipients By Nationality

Data table

While not 100 percent exact—the Department of Homeland Security isn’t sharing exact numbers—this chart gives a pretty accurate sense of which nationalities’ citizens have benefited from the two-year Humanitarian Parole program that the Biden administration has set up for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. To qualify for the paroled status in the United States, citizens of those countries must apply online from outside U.S. territory, have a passport, have a U.S.-based sponsor, and undergo a background check.

Haitians have taken fullest advantage of the program since the Biden administration created it for Venezuelan citizens in October 2022, and expanded it to the other three countries in January 2023. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported on September 22:

Through the end of August 2023, over 211,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans had arrived lawfully under the parole processes. This number includes more than 45,000 Cubans, more than 71,000 Haitians, more than 32,000 Nicaraguans, and more than 61,000 Venezuelans who have arrived in the U.S. More than 47,000 Cubans, more than 84,000 Haitians, more than 39,000 Nicaraguans, and more than 68,000 Venezuelans have been vetted and authorized for travel.

2 Percent of Venezuelans Now Qualify for TPS in the United States (But More Than 25 Percent Have Migrated)

Before it collapsed into authoritarianism, poverty, and criminality, Venezuela had 30 million people.

7.71 million have left since the mid-2010s: more than a quarter of the original population.

And now, as of yesterday, more than 2% of them (714,700 people) qualify for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States, as they absolutely should. From DHS:

There are currently approximately 242,700 TPS beneficiaries under Venezuela’s existing TPS designation. There are an additional approximately 472,000 nationals of Venezuela who may be eligible under the redesignation of Venezuela.

Under U.S. asylum law, as amended in 1996, applicants for asylum in the United States cannot obtain a work authorization until their application is six months old. Asylum seekers want to work, and TPS is a way to get around this unhelpful 27-year-old law to enable that.

Change in the Venezuelan Migrant Population in 17 Latin American Countries

This is from a September 5 update from the Regional Inter-agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V). Some changes owe to governments (like Panama’s) recalculating their population estimates, rather than actual movement of Venezuelan migrants.

Eight countries (not including the United States) now have at least 100,000 Venezuelan-born people living within their borders:

Table:

COUNTRY PREVIOUS UPDATE (PUBLISHED MAY
2023)
CURRENT UPDATE (PUBLISHED
AUG 2023) DIFFERENCE
Colombia 2,477,588 (as of February 2022) 2,894,593 (as of October 2022) +417,005
Peru 1,518,102 (as of March 2022) 1,542,004 (as of June 2023) +23,902
Brazil 449,678 (as of March 2023) 477,493 (as of June 2023) +27,815
Ecuador 502,214 (as of May 2022) 474,945 (as of June 2023) -27,269
Chile 444,423 (as of December 2021)
Dominican Republic 115,283 (as of June 2021) 124,141 (as of June 2023) +8,858
Trinidad & Tobago 35,314 (as of June 2022) 36,218 (as of June 2023) +904
Guyana 19,643 (as of June 2022) 21,676 (as of June 2023) +2,033
Aruba 17,000 (as of December 2021) 17,085 (as of June 2023) +85
Curaçao 14,000 (as of June 2022)
Argentina 220,595 (as of August 2022)
Bolivia 15,673 (as of July 2022) 15,854 (as of April 2023) +181
Paraguay 5,426 (as of March 2023) 5,341 (as of June 2023) -85
Uruguay 27,487 (as of December 2022) 32,939 (as of June 2023) +5,452
Mexico 91,359 (as of December 2022) 113,108 (as of June 2023) +21,749
Panama 147,424 (as of February 2023) 58,158 (as of July 2023) -89,266
Costa Rica 30,107 (as of June 2022) 29.405 (as of July 2023) -702
Other countries 1,188,909 (as of May 2023)
TOTAL 7,320,225 7,710,887 +390,662

WOLA Podcast: Venezuela: “The Way out of This Situation Has to be Through a Democratic and Peaceful Solution”

I learned a lot about the current moment in Venezuela during this podcast conversation with one of my newest colleagues, Laura Dib, the recently arrived director of WOLA’s Venezuela Program. Here’s the overview text from WOLA’s podcast landing page.

In this podcast, Laura Cristina Dib, WOLA’s director for Venezuela, discusses the daunting political situation in Venezuela with WOLA’s Adam Isacson.

Venezuela is to hold presidential elections at some point in 2024. Whether they will be at least somewhat free and fair is unlikely but far from impossible. It is a goal that must guide the international community and Venezuelan civil society.

The episode covers the recent naming of a new National Electoral Council, a seemingly technical step with wide-ranging consequences; the need for a clear and transparent electoral timetable; and the importance of updating voter rolls and other crucial steps for the elections’ credibility.

Laura Dib notes a recent increase in repression, threats, and disqualification of candidates as the Maduro regime appears to grow uneasy. That makes the international role increasingly important—as it has been in Guatemala’s elections—starting with a stronger commitment to a humanitarian agreement, which resulted from the 2022 negotiations and has yet to be implemented. “International” includes Venezuela’s neighbors, like Brazil and Colombia.

“There’s always hope, I don’t think that everything is lost,” Dib concludes. “I think that there’s always opportunity, and I continue to work very closely with a civil society that is more knowledgeable than ever on how to advocate for their rights beyond their borders.”

Download the podcast .mp3 file here. Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Darién Gap migration dropped a bit in June

The Venezuelan publication Tal Cual, citing unreleased data from Panama’s government, states that 196,370 people migrated through eastern Panama’s once-impenetrable Darién Gap jungles during the first 6 months of 2023.

Fifty-one percent, or 100,514 of the travelers who transited through the Darien jungle between January and June 2023, were Venezuelans.

Venezuelans were followed by Haitians (33,074), Ecuadorians (25,105), citizens of 23 African countries (6,420), Chileans (4,964) and Colombians (3,579).

(The Chileans were almost entirely the children of Haitian migrants who were born in Chile.)

If the 196,370 figure is near final, it is almost exactly 30,000 more than the 166,649 people whom Panamanian authorities had measured through May.

Screenshot from Panama's Darién Gap statistics, updated through May, showing 166,649 migrants, about 30,000 less than the figure through June cited in TalCual .

March: 38,099
April: 40,297
May: 38,962

As this screenshot of Panama’s data shows, 30,000 migrants in a month—while still an unimaginably large number for such a remote and dangerous region—is about one-quarter fewer people than Panama measured in March (38,099), April (40,297), and May (38,962).

The decline is less steep than the 70 percent drop in daily migrant apprehensions that the U.S. Border Patrol chief’s regular tweets have been recording. That probably means that the population of migrants bottled up between Panama and the U.S. border—mostly in Mexico—is increasing.

Chart: Border Patrol apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border: 
reported per-day total, May-June 2023

Date	Border Patrol apprehensions reported per-day total
1-May	7407
6-May	7850
8-May	8794
12-May	9680
15-May	4917
19-May	4068
22-May	2917
26-May	3149
30-May	3396
5-Jun	3015
9-Jun	3163
12-Jun	3016
16-Jun	3254
21-Jun	3303
23-Jun	3518
26-Jun	3428
30-Jun	3542

The decline at the Darién is a result of uncertainty about how the Biden administration will apply its restrictive new post-Title 42 asylum access rule to migrants who turn themselves in to U.S. authorities.

It is also a result of the end (with the end of Title 42, on May 11) of a two-month period in which Mexico’s government, in the aftermath of a tragic March 27 migrant detention center fire that killed 40 people, was refusing U.S. Title 42 expulsions of Venezuelan citizens from at least a few border sectors. That eased Venezuelan asylum seekers’ releases into the U.S. interior, and word got out about that possibility in April and the first part of May, as U.S. authorities’ encounters with Venezuelan migrants increased sharply.

Chart: CBP Encounters with citizens of Venezuela

	Venezuela
19-Oct	728
19-Nov	588
19-Dec	693
20-Jan	243
20-Feb	206
20-Mar	166
20-Apr	9
20-May	10
20-Jun	13
20-Jul	36
20-Aug	49
20-Sep	46
20-Oct	143
20-Nov	184
20-Dec	206
21-Jan	295
21-Feb	913
21-Mar	2566
21-Apr	6048
21-May	7499
21-Jun	7583
21-Jul	6126
21-Aug	6301
21-Sep	10814
21-Oct	13416
21-Nov	20388
21-Dec	24801
22-Jan	22779
22-Feb	3073
22-Mar	4053
22-Apr	4107
22-May	5088
22-Jun	13199
22-Jul	17647
22-Aug	25361
22-Sep	33804
22-Oct	22060
22-Nov	8023
22-Dec	8190
23-Jan	9101
23-Feb	5565
23-Mar	8322
23-Apr	33850
23-May	30990

As noted above, Tal Cual reports that 100,514 Venezuelan migrants crossed the Darién Gap so far this year. That would mean about 18,500 Venezuelans crossed in June (there were 82,054 through May). That is a 30 percent drop in Venezuelan migration from May—8,000 fewer migrants, accounting for nearly all of the May-June worldwide reduction in migration through the Darién.

Since May 12, protection-seeking Venezuelan migrants must either:

  • apply for a two-year humanitarian parole status (which requires them both to hold a passport and to have a willing sponsor in the United States), or
  • make their way to northern Mexico and seek an appointment at a U.S. border port of entry using the CBP One smartphone app. CBP just increased the number of daily appointments to 1,450, about double what it was during Title 42.

While those pathways are important, they accommodate only a fraction of those seeking to migrate from Venezuela. Those reduced possibilities probably explain much of the June drop in migration through the Darién Gap, where more than half of this year’s migrants have been Venezuelan.

Less migration? Or stranded migrants?

This talking point about a “95% drop in border migrant encounters from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela” is problematic.

Why? Let’s examine encounters along the migration route, from north to south.

Here’s where the 95% comes from.

Chart: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela Migrants Encountered Between U.S. Ports of Entry

	Jan-22	Feb-22	Mar-22	Apr-22	May-22	Jun-22	Jul-22	Aug-22	Sep-22	Oct-22	Nov-22	Dec-22	Jan-23	Feb-23	Mar-23
Between Ports of Entry (Border Patrol)	47270	34596	54042	55910	57280	40470	50069	56209	78256	71656	75658	84192	11909	2052	3811

US Border Patrol’s apprehensions of these 4 countries’ migrants really did drop steeply from December—after Mexico agreed to accept Title 42 expulsions of these nationalities, and once a “humanitarian parole” option opened up for some of them.

But there’s no 95% drop anywhere else along the migration route, where people fleeing those countries have become stranded.

Since December, Mexico’s encounters with these 4 countries’ migrants are only down 42%.

Chart: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela Migrants Encountered in Mexico

	Jan-22	Feb-22	Mar-22	Apr-22	May-22	Jun-22	Jul-22	Aug-22	Sep-22	Oct-22	Nov-22	Dec-22	Jan-23	Feb-23	Mar-23
Total	7549	6601	10448	11221	8551	8071	11308	21545	22910	31047	23450	21124	12480	9859	12327

Since December, Honduras’s encounters with Cuban, Haitian, and Venezuelan migrants are up 10%.

(Nicaraguan citizens don’t need passports to be in Honduras, and thus don’t end up in Honduras’s count of “irregular” or “undocumented” migrants.)

Chart: Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela Migrants Encountered in Honduras

	Jan-22	Feb-22	Mar-22	Apr-22	May-22	Jun-22	Jul-22	Aug-22	Sep-22	Oct-22	Nov-22	Dec-22	Jan-23	Feb-23	Mar-23
Total	1589	2253	7571	10703	10757	12726	10297	18504	17332	21173	15833	11666	9310	9183	12879

Since December, in Panama’s Darién Gap, migration from Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela is up 250% (though down 57% from a high in October, before Mexico started accepting expulsions of Venezuelan migrants).

Chart: Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela Migrants Encountered in Panama’s Darién Gap

	Jan-22	Feb-22	Mar-22	Apr-22	May-22	Jun-22	Jul-22	Aug-22	Sep-22	Oct-22	Nov-22	Dec-22	Jan-23	Feb-23	Mar-23
Total	2595	2534	2723	4113	11408	12800	18885	26142	41531	45781	6723	8340	14542	14946	29186

The upshot: migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela may be down sharply at the US-Mexico border, due to aggressive Title 42 expulsions.

But the expulsions have absolutely not deterred these nations’ citizens from migrating. They’re still fleeing—but they’re stranded.

A Venezuelan migrant in Tegucigalpa, Honduras

After passing through the Darién Gap, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, some U.S.-bound migrants get stranded en route as they struggle to raise money to pay bus fares.

At the beginning of this century, Venezuela was one of Latin America’s wealthier countries. Back then, the idea of its citizens using an image of their flag to evoke pity in Honduras—the 2nd or 3rd poorest nation in the hemisphere—would’ve been ludicrous.

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