US aided Venezuelan opposition leader’s secret flight to Florida

American diplomats on the ground in Colombia helped bring Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to the United States, the State Department said on Tuesday, hours after he was reported to have landed in Miami.

State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said three U.S. diplomats worked closely with the Colombian government to bring Guaidó to the U.S. safely.

“We are thankful to the government of Colombia for supporting Venezuelans fleeing their country due to persecution and the humanitarian crisis inside of Venezuela,” Patel said.

He would not address whether the opposition leader would seek asylum, saying such requests are confidential. Patel further said that the assistance provided to Guaidó does not indicate a change in U.S. policy when it comes to Venezuela.

Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) tweeted that she is going to ask President Biden to grant Guaidó and his family asylum in the U.S.

The Biden administration has sought to walk a tightrope between supporting democratic aspirations in Venezuela and carrying out selective engagement with the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“We continue to be clear-eyed about that, that we expect the regime in Venezuela to make significant progress when it comes to some of the humanitarian and human rights concerns that we’ve consistently raised about the regime,” Patel said.

Guaidó, who had served until January as interim president for a parallel Venezuelan government, tweeted that he was fleeing Colombia because of threats made against his family by the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Guaidó said in a video posted to Twitter that he had crossed by foot from Venezuela to Colombia, and that drew criticisms from Colombian government officials as an “illegal entry.”

“They’re kicking me out of Colombia. The persecution of the dictatorship extended, unfortunately, today to Colombia,” he said, an affront to “millions who want a better country, that want a solution.”

Guaidó posted the video from inside an airplane, with bloodshot eyes, noting that he had traveled 60 hours to get to Bogotá.

“We’re going to push ahead, we’re going to keep fighting. This is an important moment for Venezuela,” he said, calling the push for fair elections in 2024 a chance “to achieve liberty and democracy for our country.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro rejected that Guaidó was expelled from the country and said the opposition figure had an agreement to travel to the U.S., and the Colombian government allowed the transit for “humanitarian reasons despite the illegal entry into the country.”

Salazar criticized Petro as forcing Guaidó out “to please the dictator Maduro.”

“Definitely Petro and Maduro play on the same team,” she tweeted in Spanish.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the second highest-ranking Senator in the Democratic Caucus, also criticized Colombia’s government as failing to aid the fleeing Venezuelan opposition leader.

“Juan Guaidó made a patriotic [and] heroic effort to bring democracy to the failed criminal state of Venezuela. It’s disappointing that the Colombian government, historically generous to its Venezuelans neighbors, didn’t seem to treat him accordingly,” Durbin tweeted.

Guaidó served for three years as interim president of a parallel democratic government in Venezuela and drew robust backing from the U.S. and European nations that viewed Maduro’s government as having usurped the democratic will of the people.

Yet Guaidó was ousted in January as interim president amid political infighting within the Venezuelan democratic political coalition.

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