Trump speaks with two voices on ‘safe’ deportations to Venezuela

Andres Oppenheimer

Despite the Trump administration’s official claim that it can safely deport more than 500,000 Venezuelans back to their country because conditions in Venezuela have “notably improved,” new reports from his own State Department and non-governmental organizations show that such assertion is — to put it mildly — a joke.

A new 104-page report on Venezuela by Human Rights Watch says President Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship and pro-government armed groups “have committed widespread abuses since the July 28, 2024 presidential elections.”

The report cites killings, disappearances and cases of torture inflicted on protesters, bystanders and opposition critics since the fraudulent elections in which Maduro declared himself reelected for a new six-year term.

However, such human rights violations, which were widely known in Venezuela and condemned by the State Department, did not stop the Trump administration from claiming that conditions are improving.

In a statement published Feb. 5 in the Federal Register justifying its decision to terminate the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) designation that protects hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from deportation, the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health and crime” in Venezuela that “allow for these nationals to return safely.”

Really? The economy, one of the reasons for the exodus of up to 8 million Venezuelans in recent years, is in shambles. After a post-pandemic recovery, Venezuela’s economy will shrink by 1.5% this year, according to new projections by the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Inflation is skyrocketing and estimated at more than 100% for this year.

Crime, another major reason behind the migration of millions of Venezuelans, remains a serious problem, with Venezuela’s homicide rate among Latin America’s highest.

On Monday, the State Department issued a new travel advisory for Venezuela, emphasizing “the extreme danger for U.S. citizens living in or traveling to Venezuela.” It says among other things that “violent crimes, such as homicide, armed robbery, kidnapping and carjacking are common” in the country.

Venezuela has an annual homicide rate of 26 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the Venezuela Observatory of Violence. That makes it more dangerous than most other countries, including Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.

“It continues to be very high,” Observatory director Roberto León told me about Venezuela’s homicide rate. “It’s the highest in the region, with the exception of Ecuador.”

Leon added that the rate of violent deaths has fallen significantly from its 2017 peak, in part because of massive emigration. Still, Venezuela remains a highly dangerous country, he added.

To make things worse, the Trump administration is not just seeking to deport Venezuelans back to their native country, but has also decided to drastically cut U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) foreign aid programs, including those aimed at helping Venezuelan refugees in 14 Latin American countries.

Former USAID head Andrew Natsios told me that Trump’s foreign aid cuts will affect Venezuelan refugees “in a big way,” because 60% of the food that the World Food Programme distributes to refugees worldwide comes from USAID funds.

“A lot of that goes to Latin America for Venezuelan refugees,” Natsios told me. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

Ironically, even Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Venezuela is a human rights disaster, even though — in a 180-degree turnaround from his previous stand as a senator — he now supports the mass deportations of TPS-holding Venezuelans. In recent months, Rubio described the Venezuelan regime as a “horrible dictatorship,” and said that it “has undermined Venezuela’s institutions and violated human rights.”

So what is it, President Trump? You can’t have it both ways. Your administration cannot say with a straight face that conditions in Venezuela have “notably improved” to justify questionable deportations of Venezuelans who are legally in the country with TPS status, while depicting Venezuela as a horrific outlaw state.

It’s time to end this political hypocrisy and shelve the deportation orders against the immense majority of Venezuelan immigrants without criminal records who, in most cases, do jobs that Americans don’t want to do. Forcing them to return to a country that is still plagued by violence, political repression and economic hardship is not just economically short-sighted, but cruel.