Venezuela & ALBA News 1.31.2025: US revokes Venezuelan immigrants’ legal status; CNE on July election; Evo Morales to run for president

Venezuela

TeleSur: Venezuela Welcomes Returning 400,000 Migrant Children in 4 Months President Maduro announced that Venezuelan public schools had received approximately 400,000 returning migrant children over the past four months. In the countries where they had previously resided, the children “did not have the right to free public education. In many places, they were discriminated against for being Venezuelan due to the smear campaign led by the far right against Venezuela.”

Venezuelanalysis: Trump Revokes Protection of Venezuelans in US, 600,000 Face Deportation Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revoked the extension of Temporary Protected Status for the more than 600,000 Venezuelans currently in the US. This reversal throws into question the immigration status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who had arrived in the US during the Biden administration and received protection via a Department of Homeland Security order in 2021 and 2023. US unilateral coercive measures applied against Venezuela by President Obama, and extended into both the Trump and Biden administrations, have caused serious economic challenges for the Caribbean country, leading to a large emigration of people. “We do want them to come back. If they don’t want them over there, we do want them, with love, and we open our arms,” said Maduro. The government’s “Return to the Homeland” plan is set up to facilitate return flights for Venezuelan migrants in the hemisphere.

Popular Resistance (Francisco Dominguez, Roger Harris) US media promotes military intervention In Venezuela The New York Times, the so-called “paper of record,” carried an opinion piece promoting “military intervention” to promote “democracy” by overturning the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Basically it argues that, because the Venezuelans elected the wrong person, democracy has to be promoted by foreign military intervention. The NYT admits that everything the US has tried have failed to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution. Punishing sanctions initially devastated the economy. But in a remarkable turnaround, Venezuela is experiencing among the highest GDP increases in the hemisphere. This “threat of a good example” emboldens other nations to be independent and serves as an inspiration to the over a quarter of humanity currently suffering under US unilateral coercive economic measures.

Ultima Noticias: Cabello – Trump administration cuts funding to Venezuelan rightwing Cabello detailed that the Trump administration “closed the flow” of USAID funds for Venezuelan extremists because they were not giving them results from their actions against the country. The investigations, Cabello read in a letter, point to Leopoldo López, Juan Guaidó, Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio, Freddy Guevara, Miguel Pizarro and David Smolansky, among others associated with the initiatives to create interim governments in Venezuela.

Orinoco Tribune: CNE Rector Conrado Pérez Speaks About Past and Upcoming Elections in Venezuela Perez emphasized that the CNE suffered a serious setback last year, though he expects it to be resolved as soon as possible, in order to make the CNE’s webpage available to all Venezuelans.  “That would imply publishing the results table by table, which has been the center of the great discussion around the July 28 elections, something that the opposition sectors have wrongly called ‘publishing the minutes…We have to speak the truth—during the last six months there has been a whole conspiracy against the CNE, like a sniper shooting,” Pérez expressed. “The elections were held. There was a whole process that, technologically, was complied with by the National Electoral Council and the personnel at the tables, trained for that purpose. There was that delicate detail. However, with the hacking of the transmission system, a system fundamental to the electoral process.”

Orinoco Tribune: Venezuela Condemns US Interference in Essequibo Dispute Foreign Minister Yván Gil condemned the interference of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Essequibo dispute with Guyana. This disregards Venezuela’s historical right over the Essequibo and undermining Venezuela’s territorial integrity. Gil emphasized that any resolution on the Essequibo must be governed by the Geneva Agreement of 1966, which establishes the basis for a peaceful resolution. Gil said that Rubio’s statements are part of a plan to destabilize Venezuela and promote external interests in the region.

TeleSur: Venezuelan Socialists Call for Grassroots Assemblies to Define Candidates Vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, called for popular assemblies to identify candidate proposals for the upcoming legislative elections. Cabello announced that over 47,000 Venezuelan communities would take part in the PSUV and PSUV Youth assemblies. During the grassroots assemblies, participants will debate topics such as the new stage of the Bolivarian Revolution, the organization of community circuits and teams, the profiles of PSUV candidates, and the party’s participation in forming a historic revolutionary bloc.

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Cuba

Granma: Cuba Denounces the Use of the Guantánamo Naval Base by the U.S. to Detain Migrants “In an act of brutality, the new U.S. government announces the imprisonment, at the Guantánamo Naval Base, located in illegally occupied Cuban territory, of thousands of migrants that it is forcibly expelling, who will be placed next to the well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention,” said Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. In addition to being illegal, Guantanamo harbors unimaginable torture and violations of all kinds against human rights – will now also be a detention center for some 30,000 immigrants, as announced by President Trump.

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Nicaragua

Labour Hub: Nicaragua’s reality: For the many not the fewThe Sandinista government is the only government in Nicaraguan history that is implementing well-integrated poverty reduction policies that address the interests of the majority. Just one example of US interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs is the violent attempted coup in 2018, inspired and funded by the US, who pumped millions of dollars into NGOs and other opposition groups in an attempt to oust the country’s democratically elected government…The human rights of all Nicaraguans have now been enshrined in the new constitution. These include the rights to health, education, housing together with women’s rights and the rights of Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples. Nicaragua now has more public hospitals even than its richer neighbours like Costa Rica and Panama – and many of them are newly built.

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Boliva

TeleSur: Evo Morales To Run as Presidential Candidate With the Support of a New Party Social organizations loyal to former Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that the leftist leader will participate in the presidential elections in August, but not as a candidate for the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). Organizations loyal to Morales reiterated that the former Bolivian president is eligible to run for office again, despite a constitutional ruling from December 2023 that states re-election is only permitted once.

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Events

February 1: Defending the Bolivarian Revolution: Delegates report back from Venezuela Camila Escalante (Editor, Kawsachun News), Dan Kovalik (Author and journalist),- Jesús Rodriguez-Espinoza (Editor, Orinoco Tribune), Francisco Domínguez (Secretary, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign UK),- Arnold August (Author and journalist), Fiona Sim (Black Liberation Alliance),- Moderator: Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)

February 8, London: Latin America Conference This will be the 19th annual Latin America Adelante! Conference. Latin America 2025 – speakers

February 9: Cuba: Doctors not Bombs Dr. Jose Arronte Villamarin, Cuban Ministry of Health. Speakers include Cuba’s Latin American Medical School (ELAM) graduates U.S. Coordinator Dr. Samira Mifatou Addrey, Dr. Jontay Darko, and Dr. Christine Knight; Palestinian-American ELAM medical student Ayman Salhab. Moderated by Dr. Howard Ehrman.

March 15-16: New York City Cuba conference Includes a delegation from the Federation of Cuban Women and the National Union of Cuban Jurists.

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Delegations to Cuba, Nicaragua:

Cuba

April 17-May 3: Puerto Rico Brigada Juan Ruiz Rivera to Cuba

April 26- May 3: The Nation: Havana and Trinidad

April 27-May 9: May Day Delegation Itinerary Draft

Different Brigades and Solidarity Trips to Cuba

Witness for Peace delegations to Cuba 

Friendly Planet delegations to Cuba

Altruvistas tours to Cuba

Nicaragua 

Casa Ben Linder Email casabenjaminlinder@gmail.com to apply:

6-16 March 2025: Power & Protagonism: Women in Nicaragua

May 2025: Co-ops and Communities: Cooperative Movement in Nicaragua

June 2025: Global Health: Family and Community Health in Nicaragua

July 2025: Solidarity in Action: Nicaragua’s Popular Revolution

November 2025: Salud & Solidaridad: Hands-On Healthcare in Nicaragua

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This is also available at ChicagoALBASolidarity.org. If you have events to publicize, send them to venezuelaweekly@afgj.org or stansfieldsmith100@gmail.com.

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