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Business class flees Venezuela for Florida

Chavez's socialist policies are creating instability, they say.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 4, 2007

DORAL - As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez further tightens control of the South American country's economy, wealthy Venezuelans are fleeing to the United States, particularly Florida.

Venezuelans have long gobbled up condos and preconstruction deals in Florida as investments, but the latest buyers want homes where they can live and business properties to earn green cards.

"First the people who come are the businessmen in the highest circles, then the losing politicians, then the military and then the professionals," said Miami immigration lawyer Oscar Levin. "You're beginning to see the professionals."

This latest and largest potential group of immigrants say they fear the effect Chavez's socialist policies will have on the economy.

"There is so much insecurity, political insecurity, economic insecurity," said Venezuelan Miguel Medina, a business executive who moved to the Miami in August. "You don't know if a contract you signed today will be honored by the government in the future."

Between 2000 - a year after Chavez took office - and 2005, the number of Venezuelans living in the United States doubled to about 160,000, according to the latest U.S. census numbers. Nearly half live in Florida.

Anecdotal evidence suggests even more are seeking to come here since Chavez's recent nationalization of Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector.

The Venezuelan Congress also recently gave him special powers to decree laws for 18 months, and Chavez is threatening to expropriate supermarkets, stores and other businesses caught hoarding food or speculating on prices.

Medina said six family members visited him in the last two months seeking ways to relocate. Unlike previous cycles, those seeking to leave are coming from around Venezuela, not just from Caracas, he said.

Meanwhile Ralph Gomez, who heads the Miami area Tower Investments group and has long specialized in real estate for South American clients, said he has received more than two dozen calls since the year began from people interested in coming to the United States. Other agents report a similar spike.

Upper-class Venezuelans and their money flowed out of the country after Chavez was elected in 1998 and again when he quashed an unsuccessful coup against his government in 2002, but many professionals still hoped the climate would remain friendly to business. Then came the latest nationalizations.

Chavez pledges to maintain a business-friendly climate, and analysts say the government has paid fair market prices to nationalize the electric and phone companies.

Yet, with 17 percent inflation pushing the Bolivar to more than 4,000 per dollar on the black market, compared to the official rate of 2,150 Bolivars per dollar, many Venezuelans are looking to move to the United States.

About 33,000 Venezuelans received some kind of work visa to come to the United States in 2005 compared to about 17,000 in 1999.

Those who come are received with open arms in Miami, where their money is welcome and the Cuban exile community views Chavez as the next Fidel Castro.

As of 2004, Venezuelans tied with Germans and Canadians as the second biggest group of foreigners purchasing homes in Florida, according to the National Association of Realtors. Only the British bought more Florida homes.

[Last modified March 4, 2007, 00:15:04]