The Latin American Report # 487

Around 1470 Venezuelans have returned to the country since last February as part of a Maduro government program that has picked them up in Mexico, Honduras, and the United States. The figure should grow by 300 more if a repatriation flight scheduled for Thursday from Aztec soil materializes. Miraflores' narrative is that it will proceed to “rescue migrants who were able to escape persecution and crossed the border into Mexico..., mostly women and children”. The ruling Chavismo in Caracas is strongly disputing the rhetoric and actions of the Trump administration, which it accused of mishandling the issue of deportations after the number of Venezuelans arriving Sunday on a direct flight from the United States fell short of the initial plan. Maduro asked the president of the National Assembly and his chief negotiator Jorge Rodriguez to talk with their counterparts in Washington to speed up the repatriations. “Migrants who arrive will be attended to. The one who brings some kind of debt with the Venezuelan justice system goes to his natural judge, his right to defense, his right to visit,” said the disputed Venezuelan president.

According to declarations from the powerful Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, none of those who have returned so far have links with the Tren de Aragua (TdA), while the PSUV leadership together with civil society denounce the complicity of Nayib Bukele in putting the prison system of the country he leads at the service of the Oval Office to house deported migrants, mostly Venezuelan migrants allegedly members of the TdA. The oil-rich nation says that Bukele has turned El Salvador into a “colony of the United States” and “a second Guantanamo to kidnap and practice the forced disappearance of Venezuelan migrants”. Yesterday, a district judge in California dealt another blow to the policy of mass deportations, which, beyond the rhetoric, does not seem to have much real statistical impact. Judge Edward Chen entered a restraining order on the decision of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to withdraw the Temporary Protected Status that benefited a representative number of 350,000 Venezuelans.

Noem argued that there was no reason to continue protecting these migrants from deportation because conditions in Venezuela had improved, a jaw-dropping narrative for the Cuban-origin congressional delegation that has taken up “the Venezuelan cause” as its own. The Obama-appointed judge pointed to the incongruity of that assessment with the level of risk that Foggy Bottom itself associates with potential travel to Venezuela, called attention to the “irreparable harm” the measure poses to “hundreds of thousands of people whose lives, families and livelihoods will be severely disrupted,” and further called the characterization of Venezuelans “racist.” Chen went so far as to posit that “Venezuelan TPS holders were more likely to hold bachelor's degrees than U.S. citizens and less likely to commit crimes than the general U.S. population.” Thus, the judiciary continues to deny Trump's most recent immigration moves, closely tied to the South American nation.

There is talk of $40 million spent in a single month 👇

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Haiti

Some 530 prisoners escaped from the jail in the city of Mirebalais in the center of the troubled nation, following a massive attack by the powerful gang syndicate known as Vivre Ensemble, which also targeted the police station, homes, and probably the Mirebalais University Hospital. Most of the prisoners now at large were awaiting trial. Dominican President Luis Abinader stated that the neighboring nation is increasingly reigning lawlessness and approaching total collapse.

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