The Trump Administration Says It’s Safe for Venezuelans to Return Home. María Corina Machado Says It’s Not.

When the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela last year, officials said that the departments of Homeland Security and State had determined there had been “notable improvements” in areas like the economy and crime that allowed for Venezuelan migrants “to be safely returned to their home country.”

Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, reiterated that conclusion in early January, shortly after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro: “The great news for those who are here from Venezuela with Temporary Protected Status is that they can now go home with hope for their country.”

But Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado told reporters that’s not the case.

“What I want is to return to Venezuela soon,” Machado told reporters in the U.S. Capitol after leaving a closed-door meeting with House Foreign Affairs Committee members Tuesday evening.

“It is not safe for anyone to be in Venezuela right now, we all know that,” she added, answering in Spanish after NOTUS asked whether she was safe to return there.

She was quick to note that she wants to return and plans to as soon as she is able to do so: “No one has ever said or thought that the fight for freedom is without risks, that’s the truth.”

Machado, who lived in hiding in Venezuela due to fear of prosecution from the Maduro government, escaped the country in December with help from Grey Bull Rescue, a rescue company.

“Our objective, and I want to insist on this, is we want the Venezuelan people that were forced to leave to come back home, and that’s going to happen once we have democracy in Venezuela,” she said later in English as she stood alongside Republican Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez.

Following Maduro’s capture, the Trump administration has not offered a clear timeline as to when elections will take place in Venezuela. In a classified briefing earlier this month, lawmakers asked administration officials for specifics on the U.S. plan for Venezuela in the aftermath of Maduro’s ouster but were not given any additional details, as NOTUS previously reported.

The current Venezuelan government, under an interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, enacted a policy directing law-enforcement officers to “immediately” search and arrest “any person involved in promoting or supporting” the U.S. operation to remove Maduro.

“I have my constituents who are telling me their family members are being told to stay in their homes” to avoid encounters with law enforcement, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose district includes a large number of Venezuelans, told NOTUS.

Wasserman Schultz, who was in the House Foreign Affairs meeting with Machado, said the opposition leader “acknowledged” that Venezuelans in the country “are wiping their phones completely” before they go outside in case law-enforcement officials go through their cell phones.

Though DHS says it’s safe for migrants to return, the State Department warns U.S. citizens to not travel to Venezuela “due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure.”

“All U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents in Venezuela are strongly advised to depart immediately,” the department says in a travel advisory.

DHS did not immediately respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.