Venezuelan migration has never been truly a choice—it has been a matter of survival. Particularly since 2017, when the U.S. imposed crippling sanctions on the oil industry, strangling the country’s main source of income and fueling hyperinflation.
These sanctions compounded years of U.S.-backed coup efforts, driving an estimated 7 to 8 million Venezuelans to leave their country in search of stability, according to UN figures. It wasn’t individual choices but a structural consequence. Whether migrants were anti or pro-Chavismo, no one was immune to the external economic pressures imposed by U.S. imperialism. They all wanted a better life.
Migration wave and political agendas
Initially, Latin American countries—particularly Colombia—were the primary destinations. These journeys were extensively covered by mainstream media, which alternately portrayed Venezuelan migrants as either “victims fleeing a dictatorship” or “security threats” to the region. Such narratives echoed the rhetoric of the right and far-right political factions.
This setup was convenient for the U.S. government and complicit media alike: first, creating a scenario where economic sanctions forced people to leave their homes; then, leveraging their suffering to fuel more regime-change efforts. Regional right-wing groups likewise exploited Venezuelan migration to propel their electoral platforms while the Venezuelan opposition secured USAID and UN funds, from which migrants hardly benefited, ironically.
Soon, xenophobia, racism, violence, and discrimination followed Venezuelans wherever they went, fueling horrific scenes such as migrants’ improvised camps being set on fire in countries like Brazil, Chile and Peru. Every petty crime and economic issue was unjustly attributed to Venezuelans based on the “bad immigrant” stereotype.
Being a working-class Venezuelan immigrant meant waking up each day to the bitter irony of being front-page news in a foreign country and constantly having to prove your humanity and that you were “one of the good ones.” Migrants were trapped in a system that exploited their pain or slandered them as criminals for political agendas.
Welcome to the American nightmare
Amidst growing xenophobia in the region and as it often happens with countries destabilized by U.S. regime-change operations, Venezuelans set their sights north, seeking stability. They were drawn by “special considerations” announced by the former Biden administration.
Some parted from Venezuela and others from third countries, trekking through the lawless Darién Gap, a dangerous Panamanian jungle, to eventually reach the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to U.S. migration data, arrivals of Venezuelans at the border grew rapidly from 49,000 in 2021 to 188,000 in 2022, 266,000 in 2023, and 261,000 in 2024. What they encountered was a “carrot and stick” migration policy: the carrot being limited legal pathways, and the stick the extension of Title 42, a Trump-era public health rule, that enabled the expulsion to Mexico of those who crossed the border without asylum appointments. Once Title 42 ended in May 2023, the stick became the uncertain long days near the border trying to schedule appointments at legal ports of entry and seek asylum using the CBP One app, created by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The U.S. immigration system is rooted in racial biases against Global South nations, creating nearly impossible barriers for legal entry, while “special considerations” often serve political motives. The Biden government used Venezuelan migrants to justify the continuation of Trump-era economic sanctions against Caracas. The temporary legal pathways were more about political leverage than humanitarian concern.
In March 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declared Venezuela a “severe humanitarian emergency”—without mentioning the ongoing U.S. sanctions—and introduced Temporary Protected Status (TPS), followed by a two-year humanitarian parole program in October 2022 for Venezuelans. Both programs offer temporary relief from deportation and work permits, but neither leads to permanent resident status or social security benefits.
Eligibility for TPS was restricted to those already present on U.S. soil and lasted 18 months, although it was renewable, whereas parole required applicants to apply remotely, secure U.S.-based financial sponsorship, and purchase a plane ticket to enter the country.
“The U.S. said they would welcome us, but they’ve shut their borders,” a Venezuelan woman told reporters back in April 2023, while waiting in the streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She and hundreds of others spent weeks surviving, organizing, and checking the CBP One app.
The promised “carrot” of safe passage was anything but straightforward.
Between 2022 and 2024, migrants waited in overcrowded shelters or makeshift settlements in Mexican border cities. Under mounting pressure from the Biden administration to curb migration, Mexico began rounding up and detaining migrants as they transited through the country. This situation led to a tragic fire on March 27, 2023, at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez that claimed the lives of 40 people, including 12 Venezuelan nationals, due to negligence.
U.S. officials pointed to the burned bodies as a stark warning, urging migrants to pursue legal pathways into the US—without acknowledging that some of those victims were attempting to do just that when they were detained. This tragedy exposed the deadly toll of the U.S. racist immigration system that offers few real options while it dehumanizes and criminalizes migrants before they even enter U.S. territory.
As of January 2025, approximately 607,000 Venezuelans were estimated to be covered by Temporary Protected Status (TPS), while over 117,000 obtained parole between 2023 and 2024. They risked their lives, followed the rules, and got legal permits to live in the U.S.
Today, those same ~700,000 Venezuelans are being stripped of their legal status so they can be forcefully expelled from the U.S. by the Trump administration. The same is happening to people from Latin America and the Caribbean, some of whom have been living in the U.S. since they were children.
Since Donald Trump returned to power in January 2025, he has carried out his promise of mass deportations, labeling Latino communities as “criminals” and “invaders.” Their ethnicity is being weaponized to uphold a white supremacist ethnostate that has always been that way, but Trump is simply formally recognizing it.
It all boils down to racism
As Greta Thunberg said after being kidnapped and released by the Zionist state for trying to deliver aid to Gaza, racism is the reason the West ignores the Palestinian genocide. It’s the same reason why black and brown immigrants in the U.S. are being denied basic human rights and disproportionately detained, criminalized, and deported.
“We were kidnapped just because we are Venezuelans,” a young man shared with the local press upon arriving in Caracas on a repatriation flight on June 11 after seven months in a migrant detention center. Another added that he was forced to leave behind his wife and two children. They described enduring hunger, humiliation and abuse. A woman said most of them were stalked and later abducted while leaving their workplaces: “As if we were criminals.”
They were part of the almost five thousand Venezuelan nationals forcefully expelled from the U.S. in recent months after being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since March, the Maduro government has arranged repatriation flights and committed to upholding migrants’ dignity, while warning citizens against traveling north due to the risk of arbitrary detention and being sent to concentration camps in third countries.
“I’m all about immigrants… but legal ones” or “we want to get rid of the criminal ones,” you often hear people from the U.S. say. However, immigrants are being abducted while attending their scheduled immigration court hearings, and their legal papers are being terminated months before their actual due date. They are being snatched from their workplaces, from elementary schools, and from their homes.
It was never about criminals because people are abducted just for looking Latino.
If it were about legality, immigrants wouldn’t have to wait more than 20 years for their green card application to go through (if they are lucky), during which they can’t visit their beloved family homeland. All while selling their time and skills applied in typically underpaid, unwanted jobs. How do they succeed in a system that’s designed to keep them out?
If it were about legality, Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University and a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., wouldn’t have been arrested in March to silence his protest against the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza. Trump’s crackdown serves the dual purpose of deporting brown and indigenous peoples and stamping out dissent.
It has always been about white supremacy and profiting from private-run, overcrowded ICE detention centers that render them criminals. These for-profit prisons are maintained by immigrants themselves, often getting paid U.S. $1 a day while being charged $5 for one phone call. ICE facilities are reportedly set to expand with a $45 billion budget over the next two years.
252 disappeared Venezuelans
The targeting of Venezuelans has been particularly brutal. On June 11, 21-year-old Yoderlin Acosta Peña arrived in Caracas on a repatriation flight with 151 others. She was deported from the Laredo Detention Center in Texas and arrived in a wheelchair after suffering four paralyses under ICE custody that left half her body immobile.
Yoderlin and her partner, Maikol, were detained by ICE agents on February 2 while returning from buying a car battery in Chicago. They were forcefully removed from the U.S. under Trump’s 18th-century Alien Enemies Act and sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism and Confinement Center (CECOT) with no due process.
Along with seven other women, she was sent back to the U.S. after El Salvador refused to hold them. Yoderlin described how U.S. agents dragged the women off the plane, resulting in her first paralysis after screaming and being struck in the face. She was only taken for medical treatment once, but the medication caused tachycardia.
“We all emigrated for a better future. I arrived [in the US] walking, and today I return [to Venezuela] with my legs numb,” said Yoderlin upon landing. She sent a message to Venezuelans still in the U.S.: “If you can return, do it.”
Another woman subjected to the same ordeal was Yorely Bernal. She and her partner were detained on May 14, 2024, and sent to El Salvador in March 2025. Their toddler, Maikelys Espinoza, was kept in foster care. Yorely was returned to the U.S. and finally deported to Venezuela on April 25, where she reunited with her daughter on May 14, thanks to repatriation efforts by the Venezuelan government.
Both women’s partners remain in CECOT alongside 250 other Venezuelan men. They are victims of Trump’s racial profiling and gang accusations without evidence. Since March 30, they have disappeared under the Nayib Bukele regime, which is cashing in $20,000 for each per year.
Anti-ICE protests and decolonizing the narrative
Amid the heartbreaking images of immigrants being brutalized, it’s been encouraging to see anti-ICE and anti-deportation protests in U.S. cities like Los Angeles, and people denouncing the racism that underpins the entire U.S. immigration system.
It’s time to decolonize the narrative surrounding immigrants in the U.S. We must advocate for their rights without framing their worth solely around how “essential” or profitable their labor is to capitalism. They have rights simply because they are human beings.
If the U.S. empire was built on the blood and suffering of enslaved Africans, today it’s sustained on the exploited labor of people of color and Indigenous peoples, whether through underpaid jobs or slave conditions under ICE custody. These are the same people whose migration stories are shaped by Western colonialism and imperialism.
Andreína Chávez Alava was born in Maracaibo and studied journalism at the University of Zulia, graduating in 2012. She immediately started working as a writer and producer at a local radio station while also taking part in local and international solidarity struggles.
In 2014 she joined TeleSUR, where in six years she rose through the ranks to become editor-in-chief, overseeing news, analysis and multimedia content. Currently based in Caracas, she joined Venezuelanalysis in March 2021 as a writer and social media manager and is a member of Venezuelan artist collective Utopix. Her main interests are popular and feminist struggles.