Venezuelans faced us to exclude under Trump
Venezuel among the main drivers of the EU asylum application
Spain has a more flexible migration policy than EU peers
Migrants face housing, working challenges of rebuilding life in Spain
From Corina Pons and Charlie Devereux
Madrid, – After survival of a dangerous trek across the jungle of Panama Darien Gap with his wife and three daughters to get to the United States, Venezuelan police officer Alberto Peña thought he found a refuge from persecution, saying he fled the house.
Two years later, however, President Donald Trump ended the temporary protected status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the US forced Peña and his family to move again – this time to Spain.
“Migration twice is difficult, both for themselves and for their children,” Peña said of Madrid. “But the peace of mind is priceless.”
It is one of the growing number of Venezuelans who have become new migration drivers to Europe.
The Venezuelans were for the first time the largest group applying for asylum in the EU in the first quarter after Germany received fewer granons after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad last year and migration checks in the Mediterranean reduced the arrivals through Tunisia and Libya.
For years, the US has been a refuge for Venezuelai, who fled the left -wing government of President Nicolas Madur, but in the second term of Trump, many criminals are marked and forced to seek refuge elsewhere.
Spain, which watched a more flexible migration policy to resolve the lack of work, although European peers approach a harder approach, also share the language and cultural values that make it a natural alternative for many of the 1 million Venezuelans living in the USA who are afraid of deportation, Tomás Paez, the Venezuela Observatory.
The fear of being sent to prisons, such as the notorious alligator Alcatraz in Florida, leads many Venezuelans to “self -knowledge”, Paez said.
“People are even afraid to go to school or work for fear of being attacked and arrested,” he said. “He doesn’t know what to do, so there’s exodus.”
Spanish NGOs observed an increase in Venezuelans who came or sought instructions on how to move to Spain.
At least three of each ten meetings are living in the US with Venezuela, said Jesuse Alemén, leader of NGOs in Madrid Talento 58, which advises Venezuelan migrants like Melian Bruguer.
Bruguer, 41, arrived in the US and said she fled from the threats back in Venezuela. She was pregnant and carried her five -year -old daughter and a temporary humanitarian visa that Trump canceled for nearly 350,000 Venezuelans when she was in the recovery process.
She was afraid of deportation and decided to leave her work as a kindergarten teacher to migrate again, this time to Spain.
“I couldn’t stop crying at work. I still said,” That’s inhuman. Why are they digging me from the United States? “She said in Madrid.
Spanish official data show that Venezuelan arrivals speed up overall. About 59% of all 77,251 asylum applications received in the first half of 2025 were Venezuelans compared to 38% of all applications a year ago.
The unknown number of Venezuelans also has EU passports through family connections and asks for a stay in Spain in this way.
In total, there was a 14% decrease in asylum applications in Spain in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. Total asylum applications on the EU are also in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2024, with fewer granons and Afghans, while requests from Venezuelan are higher.
According to a report on the internal European Commission seen by Reuters, 52,943 Venezuelans applied for asylum in the EU by July 27 this year.
The Venezuelan economy has experienced a long -term crisis marked by three -digit inflation and exodus more than 9 million migrants looking for better opportunities abroad, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of the Diaspora. The government blamed the economic collapse of the Sanctions of the United States and others that indicates the “economic war”.
Most Venezuelan migrants remained in Latin America and overloaded the already fighting public services in places like Colombia, where they acquire ten -year visas and access to public education and health care.
However, Spain offers Venezuelan to a relatively easy migration path, because if their asylum application is rejected, they receive permission to automatically stay for humanitarian reasons.
This is better treatment than for the treatment of thousands of migrants from West Africa to Spain every year, said Juan Carlos Lorenzo, coordinator of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Assistance in the Canary Islands.
“It is a privileged treatment that almost only applies to Venezuelans,” he said.
But resettlement is not easy. At least four Venezuelans who moved from USA to Spain told Reuters that it is harder to find a house for rent and work than in the US
Bruguer and her children remain in the Red Cross refuge while waiting for their application approval. Her husband, who joined them in Madrid of Venezuela, considered it difficult to rent an apartment and live in a garage.
“Migration for the second time is twice as devastating because you get stability … and then you will find that the dream is disappearing,” she said.
This article was generated from an automated news agency without text modifications.
(Tagstotranslate) Venezuelaans
