A group of migrants at the US-Mexico border. Photo: Crisis Group.
By Clodovaldo Hernández – Oct 18, 2022
A very semantically assertive tweeter recently wrote that all the new United States regulations for Venezuelan nationals aspiring to live in ths US can be summed up in one phrase: “Poor Venezuelans are not accepted.”
As is often the case, reality sounds more real when it is expressed with extreme crudeness, as this audacious translator of gringo bureaucratic verbiage did. That is the naked truth. The rest is euphemism, dissimulation, circumlocution or—as we say in the tropics—pure bullshit.
What has happened is that both the US authorities and many Venezuelan immigrants who have been in the US for some time (and some feel “American” in the gringo meaning of the term) began to see with horror that Noah’s Ark was filling up with undesirable specimens. Oops.
So they took steps to reserve the right of admission, based on the principle of sovereignty, the same principle that the United States denies to other countries, including its European cronies (but that is another topic).
The fundamental measure, as the person referred to above summed up well, is that if you do not have money—or a friend with money—don’t dress up because you are not going. Or you can go, but they’re going to bounce you off the gate like any other suspicious Hispanic.
The tales of the migration authorities about the mothers who, according to media reviews, swam the Rio Grande with a baby in their arms, to female agents who were waiting for them on the other side with diapers and hot bottles, are finished. Or the stories of the gentlemen who, when completing the task, tearfully kissed the land of freedom. Now, they have invented something very typical of that society of corporations and big businesses: to be well received there, you must have a sponsor, someone who pays a kind of deposit in advance.
It couldn’t be clearer that with this system, only those who have enough money to obtain their sponsor can enjoy their “American way of life.” The business will flourish (it already must be flourishing) of paying someone who has citizenship to declare themselves a sponsor. And surely the infants of the Venezuelan coup opposition are going to take the best cut. They are like that.
Excluding the (poor) adventurers of Darién, the quota of 24,000 that the United States government will “generously” grant will remain for the highest bidders in the auction, since the invisible hand of the market will operate.
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Inflated and punctured heroes
With the end of the special treatment that Venezuelans were receiving (compared to those from the rest of Latin America and Caribbean), the great news story of recent times is left without wings: the masses of compatriots who “fled” from Venezuela (from the dictatorship, of socialism, of brutal repression, of the humanitarian crisis, in short) through one of the most dangerous jungles on the continent, the Darién, which is not in Venezuela, but far away, between Colombia and Panama.
In all this time, the stories of tragedy and heroism of the Venezuelans crossing this region filled the pages of all the outlets of the global hegemonic media machinery, from the aristocratic New York Times to the “Venezuelan” digital media (funded by USAID or its European equivalents). They also took over social networks with videos broadcast from the “jungle” (as it is often called in movies), with an unusual technological deployment that some cities already wanted for themselves.
It was never sufficiently clear whether these people, once they entered Panama (a country that, as can be deduced, allowed them to enter through this illegal route, although they ask for a visa through regular channels) continued to walk or use precarious means of transportation through all of Central America and Mexico until reaching the border of the coveted empire.
It all sounded very incoherent, among other reasons because a journey of that length, passing through so many countries, requires a lot of money for food, transportation, bribes to authorities (well, they are supposed to be illegal) and payment of the famous “coyotes.” That level of spending contradicts the narrative that travelers were displaced by war, marching in caravans, and only own the clothes on their backs. But, well, we are in times in which everyone believes what they want to believe, no matter how crazy the story is.
The most dramatic thing about this whole affair is that some of those people who “went through the Darién,” or who are currently on that insane journey, suddenly found themselves with a change in US policy. It is really tragic, not only for those who suffer it in their own flesh, but also for their relatives and, in some way, for all of us.
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The hypocrisy tournament
The modification of the rules for Venezuelans to enter the United States has been like the starting shot to a race of champions of hypocrisy, both there and here.
Let’s look at the United States: they blockaded the country; they applied all kinds of unilateral coercive measures; CITGO was stolen; they pirated gasoline tankers; they supported the invasion of the territory with false humanitarian aid and with cells of mercenaries and deserters; they set a reward for the head of the Constitutional president; they created a self-proclaimed wimp; they undermined the government’s dialogue with the opposition, instigated street riots; they directed attacks against oil and electricity installations… and everything else that is not yet known. Well, after all those actions aimed at causing an unbearable situation in the country, they said they were “concerned” about the exodus. They made worldwide propaganda against Venezuelan socialism, relying on the migratory wave that they themselves helped generate. And now, to make matters worse, they are kicking out of their country the Venezuelans who bought into the story that everything is going well there and were waiting for them with a house, food, a well-paid job and a modern car.
This mistreatment is another of the many that must be added to the catalog of infamies that the elites of that imperial country applied to Venezuela for not having the type of government that these people find acceptable.
Closely associated with these elites are the Venezuelans who have participated in their attempts at “regime change,” hoping to be the ones anointed with power once the government of Nicolás Maduro is overthrown or the president is assassinated.
These nefarious characters instigated thousands of Venezuelans to leave the country and then have stimulated outbreaks of xenophobia against their own compatriots, all in an effort to consolidate the narrative of “the worst migration crisis in the world” and promote a multinational armed intervention. They have already done it in South American countries with the deplorable performance of Julio Borges, who described Venezuelan migrants as “a contagious disease.” Now there are unmistakable signs that they were also involved in the change of rules in the United States.
Spokespeople for the self-proclaimed government are sorry for what is happening to illegal Venezuelan immigrants, but there are numerous indications that they participated in the design of the measure or, at least, were aware of it. And they did it because for a few months, the Venezuelan migratory wave was getting out of its course. It was no longer a closed preserve for middle-class opponents who arrived there with false claims of being politically persecuted and humanitarian refugees. Socially, the group was turning into the common people, something that the opposition leadership is disgusted with in Venezuela (even if they make interested faces) and that in the United States makes them ashamed because they are too common and lumpen and, consequently, damage the image of sifrinos migrants.
Others who are giving themselves self-righteous chest beatings are those who manage the “free press” media, who after encouraging legions of Venezuelans to leave the country because there was no future here, because any place was better than this; after elevating the post-truth of the Darién to hyperbole, now they intend to act as if they had nothing to do with it, as if they had limited themselves to objectively reporting. And then they are heard or read asking the United States not to be so United States.
It is moving to see the Venezuelan migrants expelled to Mexico, where they do not want to be and where the Mexicans do not want them to be. It is impressive to see them protest against the US government, with the attitude of someone who feels betrayed by soul brother. It is astonishing to see that, it seems, they were unaware that the United States authorities have been committing all kinds of abuses against migrants from South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, including atrocities such as separating children from their parents, putting them in children’s prisons and subjecting them to judgments in a language they do not speak. Sure, maybe they hadn’t found out because their media, so free and democratic, always hid it from them. Or maybe they did find out, but preferred to believe that it was an invention of the communists to discredit the most democratic country in the world.
(La IguanaTV) by Clodovaldo Hernández
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/KW/SL
