The Venezuelan surge at the border

 Monica Showalter:

The flight from socialist hellhole Venezuela has turned into a monster with even the Guardian noticing:

The continuing exodus of millions of Venezuelans is reaching “a tipping point” as the response to the crisis remains critically underfunded.

More than 5.6 million have left the country since 2015, when it had a population of 30 million, escaping political, economic and social hardships. It has become the largest external displacement crisis in the region’s history, and the most underfunded.

“Never in our history in Latin America have we faced such movement of people out of a country that was one of the richest in the region and a country that is not at war,” said Eduardo Stein, special representative of the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “Whatever fails in one of the largest and richest countries in the subcontinent is going to affect the rest of the region. Latin America will never be the same.”

Oh, and they're coming to the U.S., too, in ever-expanding numbers.

What a coincidence: Kamala Harris is going to the border -- right to the area where most of them are pouring in. Later this week, Harris travels to the El Paso corridor, where most Venezuelans in flight from socialism are making their unauthorized entrance. I wrote about that here.

Unlike the Central Americans, many of these Venezuelan border surgers do have valid asylum claims.

Yet the Guardian story only quotes United Nations officials and their pals as calling for the West to aid the refugees.

Last year’s UN response plan received less than half the $1.41bn requested.

The Red Cross has said it needs to raise $264m to support Venezuelans and 17 host countries over the next three years.

Border closures due to the pandemic stalled migration. But by the end of 2020, 3.9 million Venezuelans were designated as being displaced abroad without formal refugee status – but still judged in need of international protection – up from 3.6 million in 2019, according to the latest UN figures. 

Stein said 1,800 to 2,000 people had been leaving Venezuela daily in the past three months, many taking dangerous paths out, including using people traffickers.

Translation for Harris: They're coming.

To hear these UN officials tell it, it's as if the entire world is obligated to bail the Maduro regime out by shelling out billions for refugee upkeep. And education. And medical care. And living costs. And much more...for as long as it takes, and as long as any Venezuelan can't stand living in Venezuela anymore and wants the hell out. For the West, it's 'pay.' And pay. And pay and pay again as the refugee flow snowballs. What happens when the full 30 million Venezuelans want out, which they probably do and could just come?

Kamala Harris isn't going to have much of an answer in her "global warming" claims.

Yet there is a root cause to this one, and it's not a simple quest for higher incomes and a "better life" as migrants from Central America are telling the press. It's not a sophisticated coyote network of migrant smugglers selling their services on Facebook, using Joe Biden's words as selling points and handing out Biden T-shirts for the march in.

It's the fact that Venezuela is under the iron grip of a socialist-communist dictator who can't be dislodged by democratic means. Venezuelans spent 20 years protesting, organizing, working for fair elections, running for office to try this, and it's all come to naught based on electoral rigging, a reign of terror, and grotesque economic warfare against all productive people, and against the very poor. too.

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The earlier exodus from the socialist hell hole in Venezuela helped keep Florida a red state.  The chances that these people will vote for Democrats and socialism are beyond remote.