The magnitude of the crisis in Venezuela grows every day. From a social, political, and humanitarian perspective, the situation is steadily worsening, and at this moment, the axis of the country’s international policy, if it could be called that, is centered on the perverse management of migrants, their use as a bargaining chip to obtain the most precious resource for the authoritarian regime: time.
Thus, Nicolas Maduro has gone to every possible extreme in his handling and conception of migration. In the first stage, he simply chose to deny the existence of the migration phenomenon. Defying the harsh reality, obvious to the world, of millions of Venezuelans fleeing their country, Nicolás Maduro and his accomplices, with Diosdado Cabello and Jorge Rodríguez in a starring role, repeated ad nauseam that the migration phenomenon was “an invention of the opposition,” that such a thing did not exist, that Venezuela was experiencing a period of prosperity.
The narrative of denial persisted for a while, but gradually, faced with the daily evidence of migrants, the migrants on the move, and the obvious arrival of migration to neighboring countries, this narrative began to mutate. Suddenly, not only does migration exist, but the former denier suddenly became the unconditional “defender” of migrants. Maduro multiplied the accusations against the various countries receiving Venezuelans, pointing to alleged mistreatment and promoting absurd propaganda campaigns, such as a so-called “Return to the Homeland” plan. This plan, for its part, was lavished with televised praise for those who returned to the country, a minuscule proportion compared to those who left, and praised Maduro as a generous leader concerned about his people. Contrary to what the country’s public media system reported, those returning, many of them terrified of COVID-19, were openly accused of being sent as “biological weapons” to decimate the Venezuelan population and detained in prison-like conditions upon reaching national territory.
This phase continued until the end of 2024, when, with the arrival of a new administration in the United States and the resulting uncertainty, the pendulum—migrants yes, migrants no—accelerated its swing. Thus, in just a few days, Maduro could repeatedly declare, under pressure from the US government demanding the “deportation” of migrants to Venezuela, that he would not allow it to happen. And he did not. He accused the United States of unacceptable imperialist behavior, while preventing a group of deported Venezuelans from entering their own country.
This indignation, however, was short-lived for Maduro. Once the United States announced that it would extend the license for the oil company Chevron to continue operating in Venezuela, Maduro automatically authorized the landing of flights carrying deported migrants. It clearly demonstrates how false and ever-changing the official position has been regarding migrants, who are Venezuelan citizens with rights.
Meanwhile, more than two hundred Venezuelan citizens imprisoned in the United States are being scandalously transferred to a prison in El Salvador. There is no evidence that these citizens have committed crimes; there has been no trial, not even a case file, yet they are sent to a maximum-security prison, where they arrive after being humiliated, exposed, and abused as part of a propaganda operation.
This situation allows us to highlight the existence of serious human rights violations. Carrying out a mass expulsion and imprisonment of migrants without a trial that clearly determines the reasons behind the measure is unacceptable. Sending them to a third country where they have not committed a crime is also a violation of all laws. Without a trial, there is no conviction, no defense, no time limits, no rights.
The government of Nicolás Maduro has hired a law firm in El Salvador, which has filed a writ of habeas corpus in defense of some of the migrants and opposing the “terrorist” label under which they have been imprisoned. This is even though he himself has detained more than two thousand Venezuelan citizens since the presidential election of July 28, accusing them of terrorism.
The migrants have been left at the mercy of a political game in which they have no voice or role. They are used by Nicolás Maduro to, drop by drop, obtain immediate advantages in his desperate search for survival in the face of the kidnapping he perpetrated during the last presidential election on July 28. Even the opposition has been ambiguous about the situation and has not raised its voice against the violation of the rights of Venezuelan citizens, given that it assumes that the US government, the promoter of this initiative, is a supporter it cannot lose. Migrants have been left out in the cold, and only the vigilant attention of the international community and the timely denunciation of the violation of their rights can help address their plight.