Trump Distorts Venezuela Crime Data to Falsely Claim Country Sends Criminals to U.S.

Trump Distorts Venezuela Crime Data to Falsely Claim Country Sends Criminals to U.S.

Experts Warn Against Xenophobia Towards Venezuelan Immigrants

In recent weeks, former President Donald Trump has doubled down on his anti-immigrant rhetoric, falsely claiming that countries around the world have been "emptying their prisons and mental institutions" to send criminals to the United States. As supposed proof of this, the Republican presidential candidate has been citing a drop in crime in Venezuela.

"They crossed our border claiming they were afraid for their lives in Venezuela, but you know, crime in Venezuela is down... because they've brought all the criminals here," Trump questioned on Saturday during a speech in Philadelphia, where he once again criticized the Biden administration's handling of the border.

Trump's claim is false.

While the number of violent deaths in Venezuela dropped by around 25% in 2023 compared to 2021 and 2022, according to data from the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, the decline is part of a trend that has been observed since 2018, long before the Democratic Biden administration took office.

"The majority of the exodus of Venezuelans are hardworking, professional people who are contributing positively to the countries that have welcomed them."

CARLOS NIETO, UNA VENTANA A LA LIBERTAD

Experts on the topic also highlighted to Noticias Telemundo that there is no evidence of a state policy aimed at sending criminals to other countries. "Here, they are really not releasing prisoners to send them anywhere," said Carlos Nieto, general coordinator of Una Ventana a la Libertad, an organization that defends and promotes the human rights of incarcerated individuals in Venezuela.

To understand the decline in the crime rate in the South American country, experts point out that the data primarily addresses homicides, that there are no official government figures, and in some cases, the impact of migration.

Migration Crisis

More than 7.7 million people have left Venezuela in search of a better life, according to United Nations data as of April 2024, representing one of the largest migration crises in the world, according to Human Rights Watch. "That reduces everything, that has to be reducing the cancer death rate, the traffic accident rate, everything," said Ronna Rísquez, co-founder of Monitor de Víctimas, an observatory of violence, and In.Visibles, a media outlet that investigates victims of organized crime in Latin America.

As part of this exodus, some criminals have also emigrated from Venezuela, Nieto said in a telephone interview. Not only to the United States, but also to other Latin American countries, but of "those millions who have emigrated from Venezuela, the criminals are the minority," he added.

"The majority of the exodus of Venezuelans are hardworking, professional people who are contributing positively to the countries that have welcomed them. We cannot create a kind of xenophobia towards Venezuelans," Nieto emphasized.

Amid an increasingly precarious situation in the country, crime has become "unprofitable" for many gangs, leading them to move, the experts said. "The complex humanitarian emergency meant that in Venezuela there was no food, no medicine, no toilet paper. It was not profitable to steal," Rísquez pointed out.

"These gangs were turning into organized crime groups and then, within the framework of the complex humanitarian emergency, which was another determining factor, these gangs also began to emigrate first to the border areas and then, like the Tren de Aragua, to other countries," she added.

This explains the reduction in urban violence mainly, according to the expert, "because there is still violence that is not well measured in the border areas, especially in the state of Bolívar, in the state of Sucre, in the state of Táchira."

But that is not evidence that Venezuela is sending "all its criminals" to the United States, as Trump claims.

While authorities have arrested 47 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua on U.S. soil between 2023 and 2024, that number does not justify Trump's words, especially when contrasted with the fact that more than 330,000 Venezuelans crossed the U.S. border last year.

Misleading Figures

When discussing crime in Venezuela, it is important to note that the government has not provided reliable reports on crimes in many years. The data that exists are projections from non-governmental organizations generated through journalistic work, according to experts.

In addition, homicide figures do not take into account disappearances. "These are people who are not found in the statistics as homicides because they are formally disappeared, but maybe many of them have actually died," Rísquez said.

Another factor that is not evident in the country's violence statistics, but may be contributing to the decline, are extrajudicial executions, killings by the authorities of people accused of belonging to criminal groups. "They became a kind of state policy between 2015 and it remains serious between 2015 and 2020 approximately," Rísquez said. During that period, the expert detailed, around 20,000 victims have been added.

It is worth noting that, while the Venezuelan government has tried to reduce its prison population due to overcrowding in its pre-trial detention centers, originally designed to hold people for a short period, this does not mean the country is sending criminals to other parts.

"We have people who have been in prison for four, five years, who still have not been given a final sentence," Nieto said. "Now, that these people who are being released are being sent to the United States, that's not the case. There is no state policy to do this."