Passport applications. Asylum requests. Consular procedures. In both Buenos Aires and Caracas, it’s all up in the air after a post-electoral diplomatic dispute saw President Nicolás Maduro recall Venezuela’s diplomatic personnel from Argentina and expel their Caracas counterparts.
Argentine diplomats left Venezuela on Thursday. Brazil took over the compound in Caracas and will be in charge of representing Argentina’s interests in Venezuela. This means the Brazilian Foreign Ministry is now responsible for the six Venezuelan opposition aides who have been living in the Argentine embassy seeking asylum since March.
However, the aides aren’t the only ones whose future is hanging in the balance. The departure of Venezuelan diplomatic personnel from Buenos Aires is also causing major disruption for many of the 220,000 Venezuelans living in Argentina.
‘It leaves citizens vulnerable’
On Tuesday night, hundreds of Venezuelans gathered outside their embassy in Buenos Aires to protest Sunday’s election results. Venezuelan authorities claimed that President Nicolás Maduro had won a third straight term. However, the Venezuelan opposition has claimed the ballot was fraudulent, and leaders around the world have refused to recognize the results, calling on the government to publish the electoral records so the numbers can be verified.
The embassy building was mostly empty, a source close to the matter told the Herald. One of its windows, shattered after someone threw a rock at it during Sunday night’s protests, had not been fixed. On Tuesday, a sign was posted to the riot fencing outside the building saying that the Venezuelan embassy would not be providing services until further notice because of the “violent actions generated in the surroundings” after the elections.
“The consular corps has already left and all the paperwork is still left inside,” said Enrique Lozada García, the press representative in Argentina for opposition leader María Corina Machado and candidate Edmundo González Urrutia. “There is no explanation as to how appointments can be granted.”
Charbel Najm, co-founder of Alianza por Venezuela, an NGO assisting Venezuelan migrants in Argentina, said the community of 220,000 Venezuelan migrants in Argentina will not be able to obtain their passports.
“There is a lot of uncertainty,” Najm added. “As of today, all consular procedures have been suspended. We have been told that some administrative staff will stay but we are still not sure that consular procedures usually carried out here will continue. The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has not yet said how those procedures will be carried out.”
“The isolation of Venezuela not only isolates the regime but also leaves its citizens vulnerable,” Najm added.
Ana Sofía Moreno, a 32-year-old Venezuelan video editor living in Argentina, said the situation frustrated her father’s plans to visit his home country. “He was supposed to travel on August 18 and he had to pick up an authorization from the embassy since his passport has expired,” she told the Herald.
Recent social media posts for SAIME, the government’s processing system, are full of questions from Venezuelans, but the only answers are from their fellow users. “What happens if I need authorization to travel and the embassy is closed?” Moreno asked. “There is no way — you’ll have to go to another country for that,” a user wrote. Moreno has yet to receive an official response.
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Others said their birth certificates and passports were in the building and now they could not access them. Some, however, said they did not use the embassy’s services even before it closed.
“Most Venezuelans do not have a valid passport. I have not updated it because I won’t give money to the regime,” one of the demonstrators told the Herald. Most said that Venezuelan passports were too expensive. Others did not want to alert the government to the fact that they were living in Argentina.
The mood outside the embassy was both hopeful and somber. Venezuelans waved flags and sang the national anthem, interspersed with chants of “This government has already fallen!” Two men dressed up as Argentine President Javier Milei were received with cheers, and some demonstrators initially thought they were in the presence of the man himself. They held a minute’s silence for those killed during the protests in their home country. One woman held a sign calling for the U.S. to invade Venezuela.
Difficult days
Sitting on the balcony in Caracas surrounded by three other opposition activists, Magalli Meda smiled.
“These have been very difficult days. But, well, it’s part of making the truth be respected. We are very proud. Venezuela needs a change,” she told journalists outside the building, which had a plaque reading “Embassy of the Argentine Republic” and a Brazilian flag next to it.
Meda is one of the six aides who has been living in the Argentine embassy since March 20, seeking political asylum. She described days of fear and uncertainty. Maduro gave Argentine diplomats 72 hours to leave, but even before the period expired, the six aides feared that the Venezuelan government would attack the embassy in the middle of the escalating violence. Police forces surrounded the building on Wednesday, Machado said in a post on X. On Tuesday, the Argentine Foreign Ministry said the Venezuelan government had cut power to the building.
Although Brazilian personnel are now in charge of the embassy, their fate is an open question. The refugees were under the protection of the Argentine government, leaving them in limbo going forward.
“They are still living there under diplomatic protection,” Lozada García, the opposition press spokesperson, told the Herald. Safe conduct out of the country is still under negotiation, he said.
On Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Venezuela called for the request for safe conduct to receive “immediate approval,” saying that “threats and persecution against members of the democratic opposition sheltered in the Argentine embassy in Caracas must stop.”
Paraguay, El Salvador, and Brazil are part of the negotiations to get the asylum seekers out of the country. However, Maduro has thus far refused to give guarantees, accusing the opposition of leading a “coup d’etat” and claiming his government has been subject to a “cyber attack.”