Trump Crusade against Venezuelans pushes thousands to Spain | Spain
The connection between the White House and the Barajas airport is so powerful that a firm in Washington can push thousands of people to Madrid. The hunt for President Donald Trump against immigrants –With Venezuelans in the spotlight– It has caused a butterfly effect: in just a few months, thousands of them have arrived in Spain and the asylum requests of Venezuelan citizens have reached a historical record. « The American dream became a nightmare, » says Saray Díaz, a Venezuelan who landed in Spain on April 15, from Miami, after receiving a threatening email in which US authorities ordered him to leave the country. Trump’s victory and his antimigration policy are in the heart of this exodus, fueled by The failed investiture of the Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzálezthat fulminated the last hope of change to which thousands of his compatriots clung.
Saray Díaz, 33 years old and single mother of a seven daughter, entered the United States in June 2024 through the CBP One application, A tool that allowed you to schedule appointments to request asylum On the border with Mexico and obtain a humanitarian permit to legally enter while their cases were processed. When Donald Trump assumed the presidency six months later, he had his documentation in order and worked by cleaning houses. But soon he started walking with fear. « I saw the migration patrols everywhere; I went to the supermarket and were there; even in school they could arrive at any time, there was too much tension, all mothers felt it when we were going to pick up our children, » he says.
Before the persecution – and with relatives in Spain -, he decided to buy a ticket destined for Madrid. He did it on time. On April 11, he received an email from the Department of National Security (DHS) that announced the revocation of his permission and gave him seven days to leave. « It’s time for the United States to leave, » the message began. « Do not try to remain in the United States. The federal government will find it. » Three days later he was addressing his flight to Barajas. He now tells him from a reception center in southern Madrid, where he remains with his daughter, after requested asylum at the airport.
The data this year reveal an unprecedented quarterly record: 23,724 Venezuelans requested asylum in Spain, an increase of 54% compared to the same period last year. The National Statistics Institute (INE, which accounts for registered ones regardless of their immigration status) has not yet published quarterly data that complete photography, but experts and lawyers verify the trend. « There is no increase in Venezuelans anywhere else; we are not seeing it in Colombia, or in Mexico, or in any other country, » says Andrew Selee, president of the Institute of Migration Policy, based in Washington. The rebound of asylum applicants is not explained by generalized growth. In fact, it contrasts with the fall in requests from other nationalities. In the case of Colombia or Peru, emitters of a significant percentage, the requests have been reduced by half, in principle by changes in the Foreigners Regulations, They are not favorable.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have been choosing Spain as a destination for exile, partly thanks to their open arms policy. Since 2018, those who request asylum They almost automatically receive a residence permit For humanitarian reasons. The numbers were already striking – the population born in Venezuela has gone from 255,000 people to almost 600,000 in 2024 – but asylum statistics show a new wave of arrivals. Since 2018, applications from Venezuelan citizens in Spain represented between 30% and 40% of the total; So far this year, they reach almost 60%. Ana María Diez, director of coalition by Venezuela, a federation that groups a hundred NGOs of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in 23 countries, confirms the dynamics: « After Trump’s decisions, everyone has stopped pursuing the American dream to try to pursue the European dream now, and obviously the entrance door is Spain. »
Adriana Rondón, a 43 -year -old Venezuelan, attends the call from a reception center in Valencia managed by the Spanish Refugee Aid (CEAR) Commission. He landed in Spain on November 5 last year, the same day Trump won the elections. Rondón had emigrated to the United States in May 2024 through the figure of the parole Humanitarian, which allowed him to enter the country legally and work, but a few weeks later he found how Trump took advantage in his presidential career with a speech against immigrants. When he saw that he was complicated to be able to take that country to his children – who still waited in Venezuela – corrected the course: she sent them together with her husband to Spain and then she took a plane to Barajas. « The United States is no longer an option, » he says.
Trump’s It is a battle against immigrants in generalbut the impact of several of their decisions reveals who has been their favorite target: Venezuelans. An example of its strategy is, for example, suppression, as soon as they sit in the oval office, of the parole humanitarian with which Rondón entered. This temporary permit was created in 2022 for Venezuelans, although it would then be expanded to applicants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. His revocation left half a million citizens – among them, almost 120,000 Venezuelans – on the verge of deportation. The message was even more direct when Trump revoked the temporary protection status (TPS) to 348,000 Venezuelans who had obtained it in 2023, A measure suspended shortly after by a federal court. Or when he has sent hundreds of them to the worst prison in El Salvador, accusing them without judgment of being criminals.
Trump’s speech has also fed the hostility towards Venezuelans, a diaspora that once supported him for representing the antithesis of Nicolás Maduro, but today has become his main target. His government equals, without nuances, Venezuelan immigrants with members of the Criminal Banda of Aragua. National Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noemhe said in Fox News by announcing the end of the TPS, referring indistinctly to Venezuelans and members of the band: « The people of this country want this slag to leave. » « Unlike his first term, Trump no longer speaks of undocumented Mexicans; now he speaks only of Venezuelans, » explains Andrew Selee, of the Institute of Migration Policy. And he does, he adds, because many Mexicans are already part of his electoral base, while attacking Venezuelans cost him anything politically.
The Las Caracolas shelter
The three children of Magjhonnia Cedeño are not taken off. Sebastián, 15, Abraham, 12, and Isaiah, two, move with her for the small prefabricated module that serves as a home in the Las Caracolas shelter, in Madrid. Although the family has relatives in the United States, for them that country was never an option. They would never go through the Bestial Selva del Darién to enter it. Therefore, they have not been pushed by Trump, but the failed investiture of Edmundo González, the finding that the change in Venezuela was not going to occur this time either. When on January 10, after elections marked by fraud accusations, Maduro assumed a new mandate, Cedeño’s hope vanished, sold everything and 15 days later he was on a flight to Madrid with her husband and children. « The little hope we had ended, » he says.
The family landed in Barajas on January 25 with 1,500 euros and suitcases. The first days they stayed at the home of an acquaintance of the family, but then they rent a room for five for 450 euros. The marriage slept in a mattress with the youngest son, and the other two children in an individual bed. The father managed to work as a Kebab deliveryman, but the money was exhausted too fast and his homemade did not give them room. They saw each other in the street. Two days passed and their nights in a park in Alcalá de Henares, with a cold that froze their bones. And then, another on the sidewalk in front of the Municipal Refuge of Madrid, where they live now, waiting for a place to be vacant. It was released, although now they wait for the Ministry of Migration, which has the competence of the reception, take them to a less precarious place.
They are the ones who have already arrived, those who already appear in the statistics, but there are many who are to come. Robert Tigrera, 54, was waiting in Quito (Ecuador) with her husband, her mother, her mother -in -law and the aunt of her partner her transfer to the United States in a resettlement program. Last October I was almost all ready – all the tests had passed, even a bodily review in case they had tattoos – and sold their things. But Trump won the elections. « We began to attack anxiety, » Tigrera recalls. The United States, the main sponsor of the resettlement initiative, suspended it. Tigrera still has a lot to process, but on his horizon a new destination has already appeared. « Spain is a country that, despite many things, has an economic stability that is most important. Our same language is spoken, respect diversity and also have friends there. »
Asylum requests are just the tip of the iceberg. « Until Venezuela does not stabilize, people will continue, » warns Barbara Puglisi, an expert lawyer in migrations and human rights. « We will see those of the lowest class who are in Venezuela and who will no longer cross the jungle to meet a closed border. And in the future, to those who have more resources, to those who are already based in North America, but fear losing their legal status. » For now, foreigners are overwhelmed by consultations because thousands of Venezuelans – in Venezuela, in the United States and in several Latin American countries – are being forced to rebuild their lives. And in the new plans, many look at the same place.
