(The Center Square) – Voices in the Carolinas over the weekend arguably confirmed the indictments of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and wife Ceilia Flores following efforts by America to stop drug trafficking from the South American country.
North Carolina is home to an estimated 25,000 from Venezuela while South Carolina counts better than 6,400. The numbers have risen recently as an exodus from the country is tied to a combination of hyperinflation, poverty, and shortages in food and medicine under the authoritarian regime first of Hugo Chávez since 1999, and Maduro since April 2013 after the former died in office.
The nonprofit USA for UNHCR estimates 7.7 million Venezuelans have left since 2014; for context, that’s about 2,000 per day.
Overnight into Saturday, Maduro and Flores were captured by American armed forces and brought to New York. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said they were indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Narco-terrorism is a term for drug traffickers used in violence, intimidation and threats to control territory, influence government policy, destabilize societies, or blend drug trafficking with terrorist tactics to achieve economic and or political power.
Venezuela’s displacement crisis is estimated to have increased the immigration population from the South American country four times larger in North Carolina than was the case in 2014.
In one interview in the coastal plains of North Carolina, a man originally from Venezuela said an individual “doing everything right,” going to a university and opening a business wouldn’t necessarily achieve success; rather, it depends on which political affiliation is chosen. Myrtle Beach in South Carolina has been home for 23 years to another from Venezuela who said to be there is not to live; rather, it is to survive.
Others said they worried about the collateral damage, meaning the increased instability of the country. American leaders did not recognize Maduro as rightful president and in the wake of the capture said, essentially and without detail, the United States is taking over on an interim basis.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments on TV talk shows Sunday indicated America running Venezuela is in the form of leverage.
An estimated 1 million people are foreign-born in North Carolina, with Mecklenburg, Wake and Durham counties significant hubs. By percentage, since 2020 the largest refugee resettlement sources have been from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (19.5%), Venezuela (11.9%) and Syria (11.2%), according to the Office of State Budget and Management.
North Carolina’s Department of Justice says South America is the primary source for cocaine in the state; not all is tied to Venezuela. Drug overdose deaths more than doubled in the state from 2018 to 2022. That translates to an increased burden connected to the 3 million in the state enrolled in Medicaid, the largest payer of behavioral health services including substance use disorder treatments and services.
Justifying his decision to act, second-term Republican President Donald Trump said the number of Americans killed by drugs far exceeds military actions. On Dec. 15, he declared fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” in his ongoing battle against illegal drugs.
