Alejandro Velasco

Yes, exactly.

It's, you know, the...

The justifications are not just hard to come by.

It's that they're not even provided as a premise.

The broad justification is to tampen crime.

And also becomes manifest because...

Now, the repression has reached a level that is in the sights of the International Criminal Court, which opens an investigation into crimes against humanity.

And so, again, this ratcheting up of repression in order to stay in power now has reached the levels where an international body, not just the United States, but an international body is taking notice and saying,

this far exceeds anything that could plausibly be called law enforcement.

As bad as it's ever been.

The level of economic collapse and of migration that Venezuela experiences during this time is greater than at any other point in Latin American history.

And it's comparable globally only to countries that have experienced civil war.

It is unprecedented, not just for Venezuela, but the region and the world.

The other strange dynamic of this moment is that, of course, the government has a perverse incentive for people to leave.

You have fewer mouths to feed.

Oh.

And fewer potential protesters to repress.

And so, you know, this isn't like...

say, the communist regimes in the 20th century at the tail end of the Soviet Union trying to force people to stay.

There's a strong incentive for the government to allow folks to leave for the reasons that I mentioned.