Republican Miami Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar on Monday warned Venezuela's interim regime not to interfere with U.S. and international aid in the wake of that country's worst earthquake disaster in a century.
At the same time, Salazar urged President Donald Trump to halt for now any deportations of Venezuelans back to the hard-hit country — which, even before it suffered the two powerful quakes on north-central coast last Wednesday evening, was only starting to recover from economic collapse and the worst humanitarian crisis in modern South American history.
Venezuelan migrants who recently lost their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) shield from deportation, for example, "should have the opportunity to stay for another 18 months and see what happens after," she said in answer to a question from WLRN.
Salazar toured the Doral headquarters warehouse of the nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission, or GEM — which the Trump administration on Monday said it will partner with, along with Walmart, to deliver earthquake relief to Venezuela.
Afterward, she blasted the government of acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez for its widely criticized response to the quakes — which killed at least 1,500 people, injured thousands more and has left perhaps 50,000 missing, mostly in the coastal area of La Guaira just north of the capital, Caracas.
Monday morning another significant aftershock rattled Venezuela, measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale, though it was weaker than last week's back-to-back quakes of 7.2 and 7.5.
Salazar pointed to a viral video that emerged Monday morning showing Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is wanted in the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges, blocking U.S. rescue and relief workers in La Guaira because they were reportedly interfering with an official video he was trying to make.
"The big challenge here is to tell Delcy, 'You cannot stop the aid coming from the United States, regardless of the source,'" Salazar said. "She cannot do that, because that is going to be a very black mark on her page."
READ MORE: In Doral, volunteers race against the clock to help Venezuela's earthquake victims
Venezuela's socialist regime has been more broadly condemned, however, for its apparent if not utter lack of financial and infrastructural preparedness for a calamity like this, which caused scores of apartment buildings and other edifices to collapse.
International corruption watchdogs have long warned of the billions of dollars for resources the regime and its cronies have plundered.
"How come these people did not invest resources to buy the equipment and everything necessary in order to be prepared for such a disaster?" Salazar asked.
"That shows you where their heart has been and where it is now."
Over the weekend, the Trump administration pledged $150 million in relief aid for Venezuela. But a big question is how much regime involvement the U.S. will allow in its use — particularly since Trump has praised Rodríguez for helping him take tacit control of Venezuela's large but moribund oil industry.
As Salazar spoke, dozens of local volunteer relief workers at the vast GEM warehouse in Doral gathered aid donations.
"Our goal is to get the aid directly to people in need — not the black market and not the government," said GEM's government affairs director Michael Kesti.
"The outpouring of support," Kesti added, "we have never seen this. I think every citizen in Doral has come out. We had 5,000 cars pull up with donations over the weekend."
Doral is the largest Venezuelan expat enclave in the U.S.
Doral Mayor Christi Fraga said the city itself decided to partner with GEM to make sure local donations go as directly as possible to victims and not official go-betweens.
"Venezuelans all over the world are calling and asking, 'How do we get aid to you?' Because they know we're making sure it gets on a plane to Venezuela and to the people who need it," she said.
Kesti told WLRN this is likely the worst earthquake disaster GEM and other humanitarian nonprofits in the hemisphere have dealt with since the 2010 temblor in Haiti, which killed some 200,000 people.
Like the Haiti quake that struck near the capital, Port-au-Prince, Venezuela's was centered near a major city, Caracas.
As a result, Kesti said, GEM will soon have two aid flights a day going into Venezuela.
"People here right now volunteering and helping, they have a story — a friend or a relative they haven't received any communication from in Venezuela," said Doral City Councilman Rafael Pineyro, a Venezuela native.
Pineyro himself said relatives in La Guaira only escaped their apartment building just seconds before it collapsed and would have surely killed them.
As a result, Pineyro said he's joining Salzar in calling for the Trump administration to reinstate TPS for Venezuelans in the U.S.
