Free Republic

The homicide rate in Venezuela has dropped like a rock. The numbers are shocking, actually, in how high they remain and how much they have fallen. More than a 25% drop in about a year, according to the Venezuela Violence Observatory. Suicides are up, though, which isn't such good news. The explanation for this sudden drop in the murder rate doesn't require a great deal of research. All you need to do is read the news and you will see story after story about Venezuelan illegal immigrants committing crimes in the United States. (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela’s rate of violent deaths...

Remember when Trump said countries were emptying their prisons and sending them to us? Remember the reaction? Trump claimed that South American countries are emptying their prisons and “mental institutions” and sending those people to the U.S., but immigration experts tell us there is no evidence of that happening. Uh huh. The same people tell us the border is secure. Meet Tren de AraguaTren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal gang spreading terror from Chile to Colombia The organization, which is involved in crimes such as human trafficking, sexual exploitation and drug trafficking, is extending its tentacles in eight countries in...

'You have to have blinders on to not see that there have been problems'... WHITEWATER, Wis.—The migrants began to trickle into Whitewater, a sleepy town of 15,000 an hour west of Milwaukee, toward the end of 2021. Prior to their arrival, local news and political debates generally revolved around school fundraisers or the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's D3 athletics. Today, residents are focused on their 1,000 new neighbors, who mostly hail from Nicaragua and Venezuela and largely keep to the shadows because they lack official identification. Locals say the real number of migrants in the town could easily be double the...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Monday doubled down while speaking to a group at a town hall meeting in Canarsie, Brooklyn, saying the sanctuary city law needs to be modified so that any migrant who commits a felony can be turned over to ICE and deported. Adams commended his administration for doing an excellent job during a challenging time, but stated his hands are tied by federal and local law. The mayor spoke about some migrants participating in robberies and using mopeds to commit snatch and grab stick-ups. The issue, Adams said, became a real problem, so the...

Corporate media are covering for the deadly consequences of President Joe Biden’s border invasion by pretending the illegal border crosser who allegedly assaulted, kidnapped, imprisoned, and murdered 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student Laken Hope Riley this week was merely a nearby resident and not an illegal alien from Venezuelan with a criminal history.One day after Riley’s body was reported missing and subsequently found following an early morning run on her university’s campus in Athens, Georgia, Jose Ibarra was charged with several felonies related to her disappearance and death.The revelation sparked outrage among Americans who have noticed a pattern of...

Venezuela's rate of violent deaths dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades following years of massive migration as both criminals and victims fled the nation's economic crisis. The Venezuelan Violence Observatory registered 26.8 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants this year from a rate of 35.3 for every 100,000 habitants in 2022, Roberto Briceño León, director of the Observatory, said in a webcast Thursday. That's its lowest since 2001 and is one-third of what it was in 2016, he added. Young people, who have traditionally been the main victims of violence, have fled, while criminals and gangs have...

Of the nearly nine million illegal migrants that Joe Biden has allowed into the United States since taking office, a significant percentage of them came here from Venezuela. There were 50.000 of them just in the month of September, setting a record that still stands today. The vast majority of them were simply allowed to stay, receiving court dates to make their asylum claims as much as a decade in the future. But to his credit, Biden managed to have a small number of the worst of the worst rounded up from time to time and put on planes to...

Venezuela is reportedly refusing to accept its citizens who have been deported from the U.S. and Mexico, further forcing illegal immigration as a key issue in the 2024 presidential race. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro introduced the ban after D.C. reimposed some economic sanctions it had previously lifted on the Central American country, according to a report last week in The Wall Street Journal. About 13% of all U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters this fiscal year have been with Venezuelan nationals for a total of more than 160,000 encounters, per government data. That number is likely higher as CBP has...

With the last recent events at the US border and the approach of the authorities’ response (not the ones of the States being affected, but the highest ones), anyone with some degree of common sense would start to ask questions.How are migrants from Venezuela getting from their country to the US border? Are they walking? if so, how long does it take and how are they equipped for it? If not, how are they getting there? Are they criminals? Are they crossing other borders legally? Is someone funding this?As a Venezuelan, I hope to answer some of these questions for...

Editor’s Commentary: While corporate media and local authorities do their best to downplay the immigration status of suspected murderer Jose Antonio Ibarra, it seems crystal clear that he’s an illegal alien. He’s allegedly from Venezuela and is not a U.S. citizen. Fox News, to their credit, did at least highlight that Ibarra is not a U.S. citizen. Other news networks danced around and often never mentioned that part at all. This story has been in the national news spotlight since it broke Thursday. Let’s see how fast the coverage disappears now that it’s an illegal alien in custody. Here are...

The United States is reportedly hoping that Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva uses his “influence” to convince Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro to commit to a “free and fair” election following his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. The “free and fair” presidential election agreement — which the Maduro regime and Venezuelan opposition signed in 2023 and Blinken has repeatedly promoted over the years — has, so far, resulted in a major blunder for the Biden Administration. Venezuela’s political situation was one of the subjects reportedly discussed in Blinken’s meeting with Lula,...

CHICAGO — Two migrants, recently arrested at different locations for allegedly committing completely different crimes, told Chicago police officers they have turned to lives of crime because they want to be sent back to Venezuela, according to their CPD arrest reports. In fact, police say Dhian Gomez-Mendoza told them that he is so desperate to go back to his native country that he “will do whatever it takes if that is beating up a police officer or hurting a civilian, he will do it.” Gomez-Mendoza allegedly said that after cops arrested him at O’Hare International Airport on February 7. Chicago...

In France tonight police removing 200 protesting farmers from the headquarters of dairy conglomerate... At least 23 dead after an open pit gold mine collapsed in Venezuela... US Central Command reporting four strikes against missile sites in Yemen and... Israeli airstrikes reported late tonight in Gaza... The Baltic nation of Lithuania tightening restrictions on movement of Russian nationals... As he campaigns in California Joe Biden canceling federal student loans... The Florida legislature passing a bill to release some state grand jury information related to Jeffrey Epstein... "female spaces should be exclusively for females, not biological males" Canada's Opposition Leader Pierre...

The five illegal aliens arraigned on Friday are:24-year-old Yorman Reveron held on a $100,000 cash bail or $250,000 bond24-year-old Yohenry Brito held on a $15,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond19-year-old Kelvin Servita Arocha held on a $15,000 cash bail21-year-old Wilson Juarez held on a $1 cash bail19-year-old Darwin Gomez-Izquiel held on a $50,000 cash bailMeanwhile, 21-year-old Ulises Bohorquez and 18-year-old Yarwuin Madris are already being held on Rikers Island for the attack. Bohorquez has a cash bail of $100,000, while Madris has been ordered held without bail.Jhoan Boada, a 22-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela, has been charged and let out...

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office sought high bail for a group of illegal immigrants accused of attacking two NYPD officers near Times Square last month after their initial no-bail release caused a national uproar. The suspects each pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on a superseding indictment Friday morning. Despite the prosecution's change in stance, one suspected Venezuelan gang member who was ordered to leave the country last year had his bail set at $1. However – it is not expected to be paid. The move allows him to avoid deportation while in custody. First up, the judge set...

A brutal Venezuelan gang that has used the border crisis to set up in New York could join forces with the feared MS-13, a senior FBI agent has told The Post. Tren de Aragua, which law enforcement is warning is rapidly expanding its criminal empire with a spate of brazen phone robberies in the five boroughs, is a priority for the FBI, agent John Morales said. Morales, the special agent in charge of the El Paso division in Texas, said the agency is closely monitoring Tren de Aragua’s growth and is concerned about it forming alliances with existing networks.

The US government has seized a Boeing 747 cargo plane, previously owned by an airline linked to Iran’s IRGC, which was grounded in Argentina in June 2022 on suspicion of illegal activities. The Justice Department said Monday that the US-built plane had been brought to Florida and would be disposed of. "The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that the full force of U.S. laws deny hostile state actors the means to engage in malign activities that threaten our national security," Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the head of the department's national security division, said in a statement. Argentina grounded...

Have you heard of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang? Maybe not, but this is “the little engine that could” that may bring your quiet American neighborhood some dangerous young men with little to contribute and even less to lose. Joseph Humire, an expert on Latin American security, calls the Tren “the fastest-growing transnational criminal organization in the world.” Last year, the Tren de Aragua didn’t even make the Border Patrol’s “Nationwide Apprehensions by Gang Affiliation,” an alphabetical list of 50 Central and South American gangs invading the United States—from the Angelino Heights Sureno 13 to the Zetas....

Venezuela is sending troops to its border with neighboring Guyana as tensions continue to escalate over a territorial dispute, raising the risk of a military conflict between the two South American nations. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal citing satellite images and videos made public by the country's military, Venezuelan forces have stationed troops, tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats, and an armored carrier at its border with Guyana. The dispute comes as Venezuela attempts to annex the region of Essequibo, where the country's socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro has said he plans to “grant operating licenses for the exploration...

Authorities on Friday nabbed a 15-year-old migrant suspected of shooting a tourist and firing at cops in Times Square, law enforcement sources said. The US Marshals Fugitive Recovery Task Force took the Venezuelan teen into custody in Yonkers at around 3:30 p.m., according to the sources. It came just moments after NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell identified Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa as the “armed and dangerous” person of interest in connection with the chaotic incident at the Crossroads of the World Thursday night.