By Regina Garcia Cano
Maracaibo, Venezuela (AP) – The hands of Yosbelin Pérez have made tens of thousands of round aluminum gates that Venezuelan families heated every day to cook arepas. It is deep to make veneration “Budare”, the common denominator among rural houses with a tin and the apartments in town, but it has nothing in its name despite the years of cooking sales.
Pérez, in fact, owes about $ 5,000 because she and her family never arrived in the United States, where they had hoped to escape the political, social and economic crisis of Venezuela. Now, like thousands of Venezuelans who have returned voluntarily or otherwise to their country this year, they start again as the crisis is getting worse.
“When I decided to leave in August, I sold everything: house, personal effects, car, everything from my factory – molds, sand.” We arrived in Mexico, stayed there for seven months, and when the president (Donald Trump) came to power in January, I said: “Let’s go!” “
She, her husband and her five children returned to their South American country in March.
Covide-19 pandemic pushed migrants to the United States
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have been migrated since 2013, when the oil dependent on their country has collapsed. Most have settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the Cavid-19 pandemic, migrants saw the United States as their best chance of improving their living conditions.
Many Venezuelans have entered the United States under programs that have enabled them to obtain work permits and protected them from expulsion. But since January, the White House has put an end to the protections of immigrants and aggressively wanted their deportations while the American president Donald Trump is his campaign promise to limit immigration to the United States
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has long refused to postpone the deported Venezuelans, but changed CAP earlier this year under pressure from the White House. Immigrants are now regularly arriving at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by an American government entrepreneur or a public airline in Venezuela.
The American government defended its daring movements, in particular by sending more than 200 Venezuelans to a Salvador prison for four months, arguing that many immigrants belonged to the violent Gang de rue Tren in Aragua. The administration did not provide evidence to support the accusation of the coverage. However, several recently expelled immigrants said the American authorities have wrongly judged their tattoos and used them as an excuse to expel them.
Maduro said “economic emergency”
Many of those who return home, such as Pérez and his family, find more severe living conditions than when they left for a monetary crisis, three -digit inflation and a meager salary made food and other unaffordable necessities, even less the vehicle, the house and the electronics they sold before migrating. The monthly minimum wage of 130 bolivars, $ 1.02 from Monday, has not increased in Venezuela since 2022. People generally have two or more jobs to break money.
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Jose Romero, Right, His Wife Yoselin Perez and Their Five Children, Who Returned to Venezuela from Mexico after abandoning plans to reach the United States Amid President Donald Trump’s Migration Crackdown, Sit On Their Porch in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Monday, June 16, 2025. Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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Jose Romero, Right, His Wife Yoselin Perez and Their Five Children, Who Returned to Venezuela from Mexico after abandoning plans to reach the United States Amid President Donald Trump’s Migration Crackdown, Sit On Their Porch in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Monday, June 16, 2025. Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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This last chapter of the 12 -year crisis even prompted Maduro to declare an “economic emergency” in April.
David Rodriguez has migrated twice each towards Colombia and Peru before deciding to try to go to the United States, he left Venezuela last year, crossed Lake Darien Perfide on foot, crossed Central America and walked, jumped on a train and took buses throughout Mexico. He then went to the American immigration authorities in December, but he was detained for 15 days and expelled in Mexico.
Broke, Rodriguez, 33, worked as a motorcycle driver in Mexico City until he saves enough money to buy his plane ticket in Venezuela in March.
“Going to the United States … was a total setback,” he said when he was sitting at a parent in Caracas. “Right now, I don’t know what to do, except to remove the debt first.”
He has to pay $ 50 per week for a motorcycle he bought to work as a motorcycle driver. During a good week, he said, he can earn $ 150, but there are others when it does only to respond to the payment of $ 50.
Migrants are looking for loan sharks
Some migrants have registered in beauty and pastry schools or have become delivery drivers after being expelled. Others have already immigrated to Spain. Many asked for loan sharks.
Pérez’s brother-in-law, who also made aluminum cooking utensils before migrating last year, allows him to use the oven and other equipment he left at his home in Maracaibo so that the family can earn a living. But most of its income will cover the monthly interest costs of 40% of a loan of $ 1,000.
If the debt was not sufficient, Pérez must also be concerned about the exact reason that has removed it: extortion.
Pérez said that she and her family had fled Maracaibo after spending several hours in police custody in June 2024 for refusing to pay an officer $ 1,000. The officer, said Pérez, struck at his door and demanded the money in exchange for having let him continue to exploit his unstructed kitchen business in his backyard.
She said the police found her on his return and had already asked for money.
“I work to live from one day to the next … Last week, some guards came.” Look, you have to support me, “said Pérez, said in early July.
“So, if I do not give them (money), others arise too. I transferred him $ 5. It must be more than $ 5 because otherwise, they will fight you.”
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