Image by Global Voices on Canva Pro. Nicolás Maduro, July 4, 2024, Photo: @maduro via Fotos Públicas. Public domain.
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On May 25, 2025, Venezuela held regional and parliamentary elections in a government effort to demonstrate that the country still holds free and fair elections after President Nicolás Maduro's disputed reelection in July 2024 and despite credible evidence to the contrary.
Most of the Venezuelan opposition called for a boycott of the 2025 regional and parliamentary elections, faced with the dilemma of participating and risking winning without any guarantee the result would be recognized or abstaining and effectively handing all power to Nicolás Maduro’s government.
As preparation for the election, the Venezuelan regime launched a new wave of forced disappearances and detentions of dissidents, with Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello celebrating on May 23, 2025, the capture of notable opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa, who had been living in hiding since July 2024 and was considered a “terrorist” by the Venezuelan government. On that same day, Cabello announced the arrest of 70 politicians, activists, journalists, and lawyers over “national security” concerns.
Parallel to the crackdown on dissent, in an attempt to humanize the regime leadership and as part of what it calls efforts for the “protection and safe return of migrants” deported by the US, the government announced eleven days before the election the return of Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal, a two-year-old separated from her family by the US government.
Narrative: President Maduro is the savior of the Venezuelan migrants
The people asserting this narrative frame, mostly the Venezuelan regime and its supporters but also desperate families, portray Nicolás Maduro as the only one who can guarantee the safety of the Venezuelan migrants targeted by anti-migration policies in countries like the US.
Under this reasoning, Maduro is depicted as the one making possible the reunification of families separated by anti-migration policies outside Venezuela.
The hostile climate against migrants in the US, where the country's government has sent over 200 Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran mega-prison without due process — including at least 50 men who had entered the US legally and never violated any immigration law — and deported thousands back to Venezuela, has become a political gain opportunity for the Venezuelan regime.
The Trump administration's crackdown on migration has also affected around 350.000 Venezuelans under Temporal Protection Status, who are now looking desperately for an alternative after the US Supreme Court cleared the revocation of the program.
The Venezuelan regime shares this narrative frame, disregarding that, according to the UNHCR, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country due to widespread violence, hyperinflation, gang warfare, soaring crime rates, and severe shortages of food, medicine, and essential services.
The collapse of the Venezuelan economy has been linked to “decades of disastrous economic policies — and more recently, to economic sanctions” and the human rights crisis extensively documented by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Espinoza Bernal, now seen as the face of the regime's success story, was separated from her family upon arriving in the US in 2024. She remained in government custody after her parents were deported due to alleged ties to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, according to US authorities.
Yorely Bernal, Espinoza Bernal's mother, was deported to Venezuela on April 25, 2025. Espinoza Bernal's father was also deported around that same time — he is one of the men sent to the El Salvador jail.
How this narrative is shared online
ITEM 1
This TikTok video by the official account of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro shows First Lady Cilia Flores and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello escorting Maikelys Espinoza Bernal to the Miraflores presidential palace, where she is reunited with her mother.
In the TikTok video, Cabello appears carrying a little pink box (presumably a toy of the child) and looks genuinely moved by the encounter between the mother and the child, presenting a humane face rarely linked to his image.
Cabello is considered one the most powerful men of the Venezuelan regime and has been the face of infamous terror campaigns against dissidents, including Operation TunTun, an initiative to crack down on any form of discontent after the contested 2024 Presidential election, where Nicolás Maduro was reelected according to the electoral authority under his control.
The item received 366.4k likes, 30.6k comments, 18.3k bookmarks, and 28.9k reposts. It was ranked -1 under our civic impact score as it offers a propaganda piece produced by the Venezuelan regime that provides a misleading characterization of its leaders as defenders of people's fundamental rights.
ITEM 2
Embedding a news video clip of a passenger plane landing, this X item by Vanessa Ortiz asserts that the repatriation of migrants to Venezuela proves that Nicolas Maduro is not a dictator but rather that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is one.
The author's assertion that “The dictator is not in Venezuela; the dictator is in El Salvador” implies that the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants absolves Nicolas Maduro of his share of responsibility in creating the conditions that forced close to 8 million people to migrate from Venezuela.
The item refers to the repatriation of 313 Venezuelan migrants deported from the US on April 3, 2025. The Venezuelan government accused Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele of human trafficking on April 21, 2025, in response to the latter's offer to exchange an equal number of Venezuelan political prisoners with Venezuelan deportees in El Salvador.
Bukele has shown clear authoritarian tendencies, with arbitrary detentions, unlawful deprivation of liberty and judicial guarantees, and crackdowns on human rights organizations. He has been accused of being a dictator at other times, a title he assumed with irony and pride in 2021, calling himself “the world's coolest dictator.”
The item received 49 quote posts, 833 comments, 1k reposts, 2.4k likes, and 33 bookmarks. It was ranked -2 under our civic impact score as it is a thinly veiled, polarizing attempt to normalize the long-standing authoritarianism of the Maduro regime in the face of the increasing authoritarianism of the Bukele regime.
