Thread: AP:Rising numbers of Venezuelans seek asylum in U.S.

Jul 28, 4:34 PM EDT
Rising numbers of Venezuelans seek asylum in U.S.

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER
Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Gisela Parra started trembling behind the steering wheel and nearly hit another car when she heard the news over the radio: She had been charged with trying to overthrow President Hugo Chavez.

Fearing she would end up behind bars on what she says are trumped-up accusations, she boarded a private yacht in the middle of the night and escaped to the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, her gateway to the United States and political asylum.

"I went into shock because I never imagined that something like that could happen to me," Parra told The Associated Press by phone from Palmetto Bay, Fla., where she is among a growing community of Venezuelan asylum-seekers in the Miami region. "It was at that moment that I understood the Cubans who leave on rafts."

Parra is among more than 3,700 Venezuelans who have been granted asylum in the United States since 1999 claiming political persecution. The U.S. government, no friend of Chavez, happily accepts many of them, but many more are currently in the United States illegally and could face deportation.

Chavez vehemently denies persecuting opponents, saying many have broken the law while trying to topple him.

"Nobody is persecuted here," Chavez said in a recent interview with the AP. Dozens of fugitives wanted for crimes in Venezuela are living in the U.S., he said, many of them "putting on the mask of saying 'I'm being persecuted politically.'"

He accused the U.S. of granting safe haven to hard-liners who publicly call for his assassination.

Five congressional Republicans - Jerry Weller of Illinois, and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Connie Mack of Florida - have asked President Bush to grant temporary legal status to Venezuelans living in the United States illegally.

"There's no doubt that some people from Venezuela may have very strong claims for asylum," said attorney Ira Kurzban, an immigration expert in Miami. But "many claims are simply based upon Chavez leading the country toward socialism, which in and of itself is not a basis for asylum," he said.

In 1998, the year Chavez was first elected, the United States granted political asylum to only 14 Venezuelans, according to the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics. Last year the figure was 1,085, compared with 2,431 from Haiti and 1,508 from China.

Parra was chief of Venezuela's Judiciary Council - a government body that wields administrative control over the courts - until Chavez allies sacked her in 1999. During a 2002 coup attempt, she and more than 20 others attended the swearing-in of a prominent business leader as interim president, but loyalists in the military thwarted the plot and restored Chavez to power.

In March 2005 she was charged with rebellion and decided to flee. "I was a good example, used so they could say to others: 'Look what happened to her,'" Parra said. She was granted political asylum in November 2006.

Another exile in Florida is university professor Vilma Petrash, 48. She said that weeks after the coup, a Chavez supporter confronted her at a protest and warned that "something bad could happen" if she continued her political activism.

Then a note was left on her office door: "Vilma Petrash, coup-plotter, terrorist, we don't want you in this university." Phoned threats followed, one of them from one man who said he knew where Petrash's 5-year-old son attended school, and that he might be kidnapped.

Business leader Carlos Fernandez said he was swiftly targeted for his role in a 2003 strike by oil workers, business groups and labor unions organized by the opposition. He said masked gunmen speaking Cuban-accented Spanish seized him one night and whisked him to a secret police headquarters where he was stripped naked and pushed into a dark cell. He was released the next day, but then the anonymous threats began, he said.

"They'd say to me: 'We know where you are, and we are going there to grab you and kill you,'" Fernandez said. He sailed to Curacao in 2003 and was later joined in Miami by his three children. But his wife is still in Venezuela, waiting for a visa to enter the United States.

Associated Press correspondent Ian James in Caracas contributed to this report.

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The people in the article sound like they deserve asylum. Chavez is a "viva la raza" communist scumbag who is persecuting them.

I'm not saying open door to anyone from there like those Congressmen were, but people with legitimate cases like those in the news article should be given asylum.

NoIllegalsAllowed wrote:

Some of these people deserve asylum. Chavez is a "viva la raza" communist scumbag who is persecuting them.

I'm not sure I agree, would need more information than has been provided. Since when should we start accepting the word of every person that illegally enter the United States. I could probably contrive some information and data that would suggest I'm a good candidate for asylum too, if so desired. It wouldn't be a difficult task for a clever person with forsight. Why shouldn't members of the Mexican drug cartels be able to claim asylum? Aren't the being persecuted in Mexico? How do we know some of these folks in Venzuela aren't actually attempting to over throw their elected government? That would be a crime, wouldn't it?

Now, if these folk seeking asylum can actually prove, beyond a doubt, that they are being politically persecuted by Chaves, okay. However, I would suggest many are just using it as an excuse to enter the so-called land of milk and honey.

Personally, I have a real problem with anyone illegally inside the United States applying for any sort of legalization. Asylum seekers should apply at the American Consult inside their home country.

Are we expected to take ALL asylum seekers why don't they go to other countries.I think we have been more then fair in accepting asylum seekers already.

How can we continue accepting all these people when we are overloaded with illegals ?? Let them go to spain who welcomes immigrants or other countries.

I read somewhere...probably here that the US accepts more immigrants then ALL the rest of the world combined. Its time to consider over population of our nation and stop immigration until we understand the impact it is having and will have on our quality of life !

Originally Posted by MW

NoIllegalsAllowed wrote:

Some of these people deserve asylum. Chavez is a "viva la raza" communist scumbag who is persecuting them.

I'm not sure I agree, would need more information than has been provided. Since when should we start accepting the word of every person that illegally enter the United States. I could probably contrive some information and data that would suggest I'm a good candidate for asylum too, if so desired. It wouldn't be a difficult task for a clever person with forsight. Why shouldn't members of the Mexican drug cartels be able to claim asylum? Aren't the being persecuted in Mexico? How do we know some of these folks in Venzuela aren't actually attempting to over throw their elected government? That would be a crime, wouldn't it?

Now, if these folk seeking asylum can actually prove, beyond a doubt, that they are being politically persecuted by Chaves, okay. However, I would suggest many are just using it as an excuse to enter the so-called land of milk and honey.

It sounds like the people wanting to come here for asylum are part of the educated wealthy upper class though (illegals tend not to take private yachts to a Dutch island in the middle of the night to get to the US).

If they weren't being persecuted I doubt they would uproot themselves from an otherwise very comfortable position in their society.

Besides if they didn't have a real asylum case why would they even bother trying to get asylum status? High-level Government officials, Executives, University Professors they could get a visa to legally immigrate here.

It sounded like they obeyed asylum policy (when they came into the US, through a designated port of entry they made themselves known to immigration authorities as refugees). If you're in life or death circumstance like these people seem to have been in, you don't exactly have time to hang around at embassies asking for a visa.

They sound like educated politically persecuted people who are in need of protection and can be an asset to our society.

Originally Posted by MW

NoIllegalsAllowed wrote:

Some of these people deserve asylum. Chavez is a "viva la raza" communist scumbag who is persecuting them.

I'm not sure I agree, would need more information than has been provided. Since when should we start accepting the word of every person that illegally enter the United States. I could probably contrive some information and data that would suggest I'm a good candidate for asylum too, if so desired. It wouldn't be a difficult task for a clever person with forsight. Why shouldn't members of the Mexican drug cartels be able to claim asylum? Aren't the being persecuted in Mexico? How do we know some of these folks in Venzuela aren't actually attempting to over throw their elected government? That would be a crime, wouldn't it?

Now, if these folk seeking asylum can actually prove, beyond a doubt, that they are being politically persecuted by Chaves, okay. However, I would suggest many are just using it as an excuse to enter the so-called land of milk and honey.

Personally, I have a real problem with anyone illegally inside the United States applying for any sort of legalization. Asylum seekers should apply at the American Consult inside their home country.

I'm not saying asylum can't be abused, but they the people in the article sound like bona fide refugees.

NoIllegalsAllowed wrote:

They sound like educated politically persecuted people who are in need of protection and can be an asset to our society.

Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, there isn't enough information to make that determination.

NoIllegalsAllowed PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:55 am


If you're in life or death circumstance like these people seem to have been in, you don't exactly have time to hang around at embassies asking for a visa.

I totally agree with that. When one's life is threathen with death one has to be a fool to hang around and apply for visa. One would immedately get the hell out of there. Thank God, we are not there yet ourselves. That is why we must fight and fight against these corrupt polticians and bring our country back to being a Republic and not a Democracy. In cases like this, people coming from brutal communist country should apply for asylum. Remember that ship during WWII that came to a port in the US filled with Jews escaping the Nazis, but was turned away and return to Europe only to be murdered later by the Nazis. It is very easy for us to say NO, because we have not yet been threathen with our lives. However, for my part, if that ever came to be, I rather FIGHT in my own country.

WE CANNOT TAKE EVERYONE IN THE WORLD INTO THIS COUNTRY!! THERE ARE 2 BILLION IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW WHO ARE QUALIFIED TO CLAIM SOME TYPE OF ASSYLUM. AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY 'NO VACANCY'??

G. DAMN IT! THIS COUNTRY IS BROKE, CRIME IS THROUGH THE ROOF, SS HAS A LIABILITY OF 65 TRILLION NOW, SERVICES INCLUDING POLICE AND MEDICAL ARE STRAINED TO THE MAX!

DO YOU WANT TO HAVE A VIABLE COUNTRY OR A FADING 'BRAZILIZED' DISASTER? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!

Originally Posted by blackdaysahead

WE CANNOT TAKE EVERYONE IN THE WORLD INTO THIS COUNTRY!! THERE ARE 2 BILLION IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW WHO ARE QUALIFIED TO CLAIM SOME TYPE OF ASSYLUM. AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY 'NO VACANCY'??

G. DAMN IT! THIS COUNTRY IS BROKE, CRIME IS THROUGH THE ROOF, SS HAS A LIABILITY OF 65 TRILLION NOW, SERVICES INCLUDING POLICE AND MEDICAL ARE STRAINED TO THE MAX!

DO YOU WANT TO HAVE A VIABLE COUNTRY OR A FADING 'BRAZILIZED' DISASTER? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!

Send them somewhere else!!!!! Why do they have to come here? We have to stop this. Let them go to some other country! We cannot take in every refugee in the world. Other countries need to step up to the plate and do their fair share.