Supporters rally to back Venezuela government’s crackdown on migrants
Source: Associated Press
Supporters rally to back Venezuela government’s crackdown on migrants
HANNAH DREIER
CARACAS — The Associated Press
Published Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 6:14PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 6:16PM EDT
A sea of government supporters in red shirts rallied in Caracas on Friday to back a crackdown on migrants, smugglers and paramilitary groups that has triggered an increasingly bitter dispute between Colombia and Venezuela and led the neighbouring countries to recall their ambassadors.
The spat erupted a week ago when Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shut a major border crossing to combat what he says are rampant smuggling and paramilitary activities near Colombia, and declared a state of emergency in six western cities. Venezuelan officials deported more than 1,000 Colombian migrants and another 5,000 have left voluntarily, with some carrying all of their belongings across a muddy river on a frantic moving day.
. . .
On Friday, thousands of government supporters snarled traffic as they marched to the presidential palace in support of the new measures and emphasized that they were gathering to support the security and integrity of Venezuela, not to demonize Colombian immigrants. Some waved signs saying “No to Colombian paramilitarism” as lively merengue music played and a carnival atmosphere reigned.
. . .
With two border crossings closed, the underground economy has come to a halt, satisfying Venezuelan officials who have long blamed transnational mafias for widespread shortages, but also jeopardizing the livelihood of tens of thousands of poor Colombians who depend on the black market.
Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/supporters-rally-to-back-veneuzela-governments-crackdown-on-migrants/article26153818/
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Memo to Trump: This is what mass deportation looks like?itok=hzRi_pLp
Boys carry their belongings as they cross the Tachira river border into Colombia from Venezuela, near Colombia's Villa del Rosario village, August 27, 2015.
It’s hard to imagine what it (a Trump-style mass deporation) would look like — would there be, as journalist and recent Trump foil Jorge Ramos suggested in a op-ed, soldiers, police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, “raiding homes, workplaces and schools,” in “brutal raids” across an imaged "Trump-land," or would President Trump find another way to carry out his strategy?
This week, a glimpse of what a mass deportation could look like came from an unexpected source: Venezuela, where President Nicholas Maduro ordered that Colombians living in border towns be deported. Maduro alleges that they are responsible for cross-border smuggling and joining para military gangs. Critics quickly seized on the similarities between Maduro’s policy and Trump’s approach, with one Twitter using saying the only difference between the two was the color of their hair.
Most Colombian deportees had been living in shanty towns located just across the border, where they lived illegally. Deportees said that they were expelled abruptly by Venezuelan National Guardsmen who searched for immigrants home by home, and rounded them up, without giving them a chance to explain why they were in the country, or even an opportunity to pack their things.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro said that he expelled Colombians who were living along the border because they were responsible for smuggling subsidized goods across the border and joining right wing paramilitary groups that extort local businesses. But deportees tell another story. Jose Ayala said he had been working in Venezuela as a cook. "I burnt my hands for the past 12 years... and now we have been kicked out like dogs," he said.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-28/memo-trump-what-mass-deportation-looks
"Our economic problems are the fault of poor illegal immigrants. When I become president they will be gone."
It has a familiar ring to it.