Venezuela’s socialist regime on Sunday condemned President Donald Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization, comparing it to “slavery” and “Nazi concentration camps.”
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry levied the protest in a lengthy statement published on Sunday evening shortly after the United States deported 238 Venezuelans suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization to El Salvador as per the terms of an agreement with President Nayib Bukele.
In its statement, the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro claimed that the 1798 Alien Enemies Act invoked by President Donald Trump is an “anachronistic law” that violates both “fundamental” U.S. law and the international human rights order and that, as a result, its attempted application is a “crime against humanity.”
The Maduro regime, which caused what is largely described as the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere — a direct consequence of the collapse of Venezuela’s socialist economy — asserted in its statement that the Venezuelan migrants in question left their country for “economic reasons that were a consequence of the hardships created for our people by the criminal blockade of our economy, imposed by Western governments against the entire Venezuelan society in order to perpetrate their plans for regime change in Venezuela.”
“The vast majority of migrants are hard-working, dignified and honest men and women, not terrorists, not criminals, not ‘foreign enemies.’ They are victims,” the statement read.
The statement does not mention that, in reality, both the collapse of Venezuela and the nation’s migrant crisis were well underway long before President Trump was elected and imposed sanctions against the Maduro regime. In recent years, the Venezuelan regime has repeatedly denied the existence of a migrant crisis in the country.
“Venezuela rejects the persecution against our nationals, the expropriation of their personal property, assets, businesses, vehicles, bank accounts,” the statement claimed. “Likewise, we strongly denounce that our compatriots in the United States are being subjected to persecution in their workplaces, schools, churches, hospitals, and public spaces.”
“With deep indignation we repudiate the threat of kidnapping of minors under 14 years of age; never before in history has an official document gone to the extreme of attempting to summarily classify children as members of terrorist groups, who are considered criminals for the mere fact of being Venezuelan,” the statement continued.
The Maduro regime has accused several Venezuelan opposition figureheads, such as María Corina Machado, of forming part of an alleged “criminal nucleus” that has called for the imposition of sanctions “against the Venezuelan people.” According to the Maduro regime, the group purportedly boasts “the application of this law against our migrants” as one of their “greatest achievements.”
“Just as they tried to obtain political gain from the suffering they inflicted on the people through sanctions, they are responsible for the creation of a criminal network of coyotes who, in exchange for the money of humble Venezuelan men and women, took many of our compatriots to different countries, including the United States,” the statement read.
“Of this criminal action by the Venezuelan opposition extremist faction, there is sufficient evidence in the hands of U.S. security agencies. An impartial investigation would bring this evidence to light,” the statement continued. “These unpatriotic people celebrate this proclamation that not only stigmatizes, but also invokes the figure of ‘foreign enemy’ to qualify a peaceful and hard-working migration.”
Venezuelan socialists mused that the “aggression” of the Aliens Enemy Act is part of an alleged systematic application of sanctions against Venezuela promoted by Washington and supported by “extremists sectors of Venezuelan fascism.” According to the Maduro regime, the “persecution” against Venezuela and its people allegedly began in 2015, when former U.S. President Barack Obama signed a decree declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States.
The Venezuelan regime concluded by calling for “national unity” and to engage in diplomatic, legal, and political protests “in defense” of Venezuelan migrants — making urgent calls to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to “denounce this aberrant action before the world.”
“This is not only an attack against Venezuela, it is a dangerous precedent against our entire region. The unity and solidarity of our America is the only possible response to this attempt of segregation, persecution, and massive dispossession,” the statement read. “All of Venezuela demands respect for its migrants and their families!”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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