Millions of Venezuelans Could Flee Home Country if Maduro Wins July Presidential Election: Poll

Should President Maduro of Venezuela win reelection in July, millions of his fellow citizens would consider fleeing their home country, according to a new poll. According to the Spanish-language polling firm Meganalisis, 40 percent of Venezuelans — or about 10 million people — would consider leaving their home country in order to escape Mr. Maduro’s regime, while 45 percent are unsure what they would do.In a statement to the Miami Herald, the president of Meganalisis, Ruben Chirinos, called the results “monstrous, scandalous” for Mr. Maduro. Many of those 10 million would-be emigres would likely end up in the United States, though some also would likely settle in Colombia, Peru, Spain, Brazil, and other South and Latin American countries if current trends continue. Of the 7.7 million who have fled Venezuela in recent years, nearly 3 million settled in Colombia. The Biden administration would also likely make an effort to resettle many of those immigrants here in America. At the beginning of President Biden’s term, there were just under 500,000 foreign-born Venezuelans in the country, according to Pew Research Center. According to Customs and Border Patrol, between January and March 2024 alone, more than 100,000 Venezuelans entered the United States via a special parole program that Mr. Biden set up to aid Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. Texas and 20 other states sued the Biden administration to stop the practice, saying they had suffered harm by bearing the brunt of healthcare costs and other social safety programs for the migrants. A federal judge upheld the parole program in March. “With the passage of time, the perception that we are seeing in Venezuela is that the Chavista movement, with all that socialism entails, is increasingly weaker in terms of popular support, but led by individuals clinging to power, and clinging to the notion of imposing on the population their way of seeing the country, which is a way that does not translate in generating opportunities for the people, nor in possibilities for growth, to have a family or to have a better quality of life,” Mr. Chirinos told the Herald.A fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Columbia University PhD student, Daniel Di Martino — who himself is a Venezuelan immigrant — warns that a victory for Mr. Maduro will only lead more Venezuelans to flee the country to escape the poor standard of living under his leadership. “I’ve been telling people for some months that once Maduro is ‘re-elected’ in another rigged election on July 28th, another migration wave out of Venezuela will begin. At least another million people could leave,” Mr. Di Martino says.

Millions of Venezuelans Could Flee Home Country if Maduro Wins July Presidential Election: Poll

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