For more than a decade, Venezuelans have experienced one of the most-severe economic collapses in modern history, which has caused about a quarter of the population to flee the country.
Now, a new political crisis might be motivating another wave of mass migration from the South American nation.
The country’s authoritarian leader, President Nicolás Maduro, declared victory in last month’s election despite overwhelming evidence that he lost by a landslide. His apparent power grab triggered a new political crisis, with security forces aggressively crushing dissent.
Venezuelan polling firm Meganalisis surveyed 1,007 people between Aug. 8-11. Results showed that 43% of the respondents said they were considering leaving their homeland between now and the end of the year.
“The main driver of this desire to migrate is the perception that Maduro will retain power,” said Rubén Chirinos, president of Meganálisis, “because people associate his regime with economic problems, repression and lack of freedom.”
About 100,000 Venezuelans say they would leave their country right now.
“Those are people who have already made up their minds,” Chirinos explained.
By December, according to his projections, more than a million Venezuelans might be gone.
But Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, is skeptical about those numbers becoming a reality.
“There’s always fewer people who leave than those who say they plan to,” he said. “A quarter of the population of Venezuela has left already, so it’s unlikely we’re going to see a massive flow overnight of people fleeing. It could be a continuous trickle over the next few years, not the massive outflow we once saw.”
The larger migration of Venezuelans happened between 2017 and 2019, when millions of people left mostly to other countries across Latin America.
Close to 3 million Venezuelans have now settled in neighboring Colombia and 1.5 million in Peru.
In recent years, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit hard in the region, they also started to show up in the US — putting pressure on cities like New York and Chicago.
“Probably most of those who want to leave would love, in an ideal world, to get to the United States,” Selee said. “But we don’t know where they would go right now, because it’s harder to cross the US border and to get through Mexicothan it was even a few months ago.”
New rules by the Biden administration have limited the number of asylum-seekers the US can take every day.
Another obstacle for leaving Venezuela for the US is the financial cost of the journey.
“People need thousands of dollars to get them through the Darién Gap in Central America and Mexico up to the United States,” Selee added. “And that’s not something that most Venezuelans who don’t have family abroad can actually access overnight.”
Migrating to the US
Andreína Sosa, a 25-year-old professional in tourism and hospitality, is raising money to migrate to the US. She emigrated to Colombia five years ago after she wasn’t able to find a job in Venezuela.
Sosa was hopeful that last month’s presidential election would bring change.
“I had high hopes that Venezuela would have a different president,” she said, “and I would go back to my country to reunite with my mom and sisters.”
But two weeks after Maduro proclaimed himself reelected without presenting any proof, Sosa is no longer planning to return to Venezuela.
Instead, she’s now planning a trip to the United States — by land.
“People tell me they make good money in the US, and that I will be able to help my family,” from there, she said.
Her three sisters who live in Venezuela are also thinking of joining her.
“If Venezuelans manage to make it to the United States, their chances of staying are still pretty good compared to [people of] other nationalities,” Selee said.
The US can’t deport people to Venezuela since the two countries have been at odds and don’t have a deportation agreement.
Consequences for the region
The Venezuelan exodus is improving the economies of other countries across South America, two studies published by leading international financial institutions have found. The foreign workforce will lift the economies of their main host countries by 0.10-0.25% on average each year from 2017 until 2030, according to the research.
But across the region, not everyone has a positive perception of Venezuelan migrants.
In an open-air apparel market in Peru, one of the main destinations for Venezuelan migrants, The Associated Press spoke to vendors who were complaining about the lack of sales.
Thirty-eight-year-old seamstress Diana Yaranga blamed her lack of customers on the arrival of Venezuelans who account for more than 20% of the 100,000 vendors in the market, according to the local union.
“There will be a fight for jobs,” she said.
Beyond the economy, in some countries in the region, migration has become a political burden.
“We may see some pushback in other countries, like Peru and Chile, where the issue has become much more politicized,” said Will Freeman, a political analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations.
In the US, a mass migration of Venezuelans could even impact the presidential elections in November.
“If we do see this significant surge, I think it could push that issue of the border and immigration right back to the forefront of this election, ”Freeman said. “And, of course, as it stands right now, that issue benefits [former the president and Republican nominee Donald] Trump.”
Hopeful Venezuelans
There is one reason that might still be holding people in Venezuela back from making a final decision to leave: hope.
Right before the presidential election, 21-year old Ángel Vizcaya, a journalism student in Caracas, said he had already decided to leave if Maduro stayed in power.
But now, he’s hesitant.
“I want to be here in Venezuela when this government falls — and I believe we’ve never been so close,” he said in a recent follow-up interview.
For him, the question about who’s going to be the next president of Venezuela is not yet resolved. So, for now, his plans to leave are on hold.
Vizcaya said he’s waiting until January, when the president is supposed to be inaugurated.
Related: Who are the Venezuelans still backing Nicolás Maduro?