Venezuela

Illegal immigrants arriving in Martha's Vineyard are from Venezuela. Their trip through Mexico is amazing. It is just under 3,000 miles drive distance from Maracaibo to El Paso. While some fly part of the way, others walk the whole trip. Venezuela used to be considered a miracle country. Until the early 1980s, it was one of the only four Latin American countries certified by the World Bank as an upper-middle-income economy. It was also a stable, center-left democracy, quite an oasis in a region plagued by authoritarianism, insurgency, or unrest. The United Socialist Party was founded in March of 2007 by Hugo Chavez with his promise to redistribute the wealth. Countries become vulnerable to such populist leaders when the gap between the rich and poor gets large. He began to nationalize all business saying that the profits should be shared by the people. Between 2014 and 2020 the economy shank by two-thirds and is scheduled to decline another 5% by 2022. National debt is rising rapidly and inflation is at 2,000 percent. A central controlled economy has proven over and over it does not work. Free market economies build up wealth and popular leaders come in with the promise to share the wealth and things go down hill. The only socialist/communist governments that survive are the ones that allow a free market economy in conjunction with communist control of the government.