President Biden just granted Temporary Protected Status to 472,000 Venezuelan amnesty-seekers.
Some Americans are uneasy about it -- so many people. Is this really our problem?
Some people are furious about it. GOP candidates call it an invasion. Go back where you belong!
Venezuelan asylum-seekers must cross the "Darian Gap," a roadless jungle area.
The long trip through the Gap:
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| New York Times |
They walk and hitch their way to the U.S. border.
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| From U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales |
Finally, at a U.S. border, migrants make a final push, here through razor-wire to cross the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, Texas.
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| NY Times |
They claim amnesty under the treaties the U.S. has signed regarding the rights of entry of people facing violent danger at home. Processing facilities are overwhelmed:
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| Photo by U.S. Rep. Gonzales |
People leave border towns and spread out across the U.S. New York Mayor Eric Adams says it has become a problem as migrants fill city sidewalks:
The U.S. has had sanctions in place against Venezuelan government and individuals for 17 years. The earliest sanctions imposed related to Venezuela’s lack of cooperation on anti-drug and counterterrorism efforts. The Obama Administration imposed targeted sanctions for human rights abuses, corruption, and antidemocratic actions. The Trump Administration expanded economic sanctions in response to the increasing authoritarianism of President Nicolás Maduro, in power since 2013.
Venezuela has the world's greatest reserves of oil, more than Saudi Arabia's, at a total production cost of about $28/bbl. In an effort to make up the world's oil-supply gap amid sanctions against Russian oil, Biden made the controversial decision to allow Chevron to purchase Venezuelan oil. New oil sales barely scratch the surface of Venezuela's political and economic chaos. The New York Times documented widespread deaths of children from malnutrition.
Children picking through garbage:
U.S. sanctions were intended to bring regime change in Venezuela but the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro retained power. The situation on the ground is civil chaos, characterized by hyperinflation, extreme poverty, armed gangs, police corruption, drug trafficking, homicides, and contract killings. Amnesty International reports that 98% of human rights violations and 92% of common crimes go unpunished. A police officer is killed every day. People are fleeing starvation and violence.
Venezuela is far away. We have first world problems. The story on TV this morning is that Taylor Swift will be attending the Jets-Chiefs football game. Big news! Her attendance is all over the web. She is causing ticket prices to soar.
You make a mess, you clean up the mess. We have some responsibilities here.
Here is something to read about the situation they are fleeing:
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| https://www.icip.cat/perlapau/en/article/violence-corruption-and-organized-crime-in-venezuela/ |
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| https://www.icip.cat/perlapau/en/article/violence-corruption-and-organized-crime-in-venezuela/ |
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| https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis |
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7 comments:
What we see happening is worldwide mass migration caused by a combination of factors, such as overpopulation, starvation, draught, environmental disasters, war and violence. We obviously need to try and control our borders, but we aren’t going to get rid of the problem without addressing the causes. It’d be like trying to keep smoke out of the valley without addressing the fires. Whether we like it or not, what happens in the world affects us all.
Spot on, Peter; thanks!
What’s a good way to ail these poo venezuelans, monetarily or other wise?
I wantt to point out, also, that Venezuela was very fine place to live back in the '90s. It could happen here, in an authoritarian take over!
George W. Bush tried to pass a comprehensive immigration policy but it was shot down by Republicans. The illegal immigration benefits their large donors. Large corporate employers have recognized hiring an illegal immigrant means no EEOC, no OSHA, no Labor laws, no regulations of any kind.
Trouble makers" are immediately turned over to INS and/or ICE. Human trafficking flies under the radar.
Photos of the masses at the Southern border states plays well on Fox to drive the ire of their viewers. What isn't shown, because there are no masses huddled or walking, is the numbers that come in through our ports with little detection.
These photos of the walking and huddled masses make the point Republicans want to bash Democrats with, thus they're woefully slow to act responsibly to enact a comprehensive policy.
I know two Venezuelan successful asylum seekers. Both would be immediately imprisoned or killed if they returned to Venezuela. The heart-wrenching stories they tell of family members that meet death or starvation in prison resonate when you take to time to learn their stories.
This is a welcome article, Peter. Thank you for presenting the subject in its complexity. I'd add two points, the latter reinforcing something you briefly mentioned. First, the regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean that we single out for sanctions aren't distinguished from other regimes in the region by their form of government and their human rights abuses. For more than a century we have supported--and if need be, installed such regimes south of our border. We single out regimes like Cuba and Venezuela because they ended the control of their natural resources by U.S. corporations and banks. Second, our use of sanctions is often murderous. That was especially true during the 1990s in Iraq, where more than one million women and children died for lack of clean water (we banned chlorine because it could be used to make chemical weapons) and medicines.
I did not know that Venezuelan Oil Reserves are larger than Saudi Arabias. And yet our "leaders" keep hugging the Saudi butchers, instead of actually searching for ways to help near neighbors.
Thank you, Mr. Rothschild, and Peter. And let us not forget Dr. Death himself, Henry Kissinger whose support for Chilean and Argentine Fascist Dictators resulted in untold thousands of deaths, and then there were the Death Squads in Central America, trained (and equipped?) by the U.S. at Fort Benning in effective methods of torture and terror. Those are just some of the reasons I no longer repeat the words to the flag of the U.S. or any other Country.
I hope to live long enough to see us become what those words in the Declaration and the Preamble aspired to.
If th oil reserves referred to are, presumably, in the Orinoco belt, it’s actually not technically oil; it’s bitumine, a low grade form of coal like substance I think. It at least used to be banned in usa, due to its exceptionally pollution heavy characteristics. Floriduh was, however, sneaking it into their state, back in the '90s.
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