Paging Bernie Sanders.
Via Fox News:
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signed an emergency decree earlier this week extending expired passports for two more years amid a widespread shortage of paper and ink at the government agency that issues the travel documents.
Demand for new passports in Venezuela is at a record high – at least half a million people have been trapped in the South American nation for months as they wait for new travel documents, according to Britain’s The Times – as the economic and political crisis in the country continues with no end in sight.
In August, neighboring Colombia reported that 58,000 Venezuelans immigrated to the country in August, three times the monthly average at the beginning of 2017, to escape the world’s worst recession, soaring violent crime rates and an increasingly volatile political situation.
The passport shortage, which was first announced back in March, is only the latest item to be added to the list of scarcities in Venezuela.
In Caracas and elsewhere, Venezuelans have struggled for months – and in some cases years – to get hold of supplies ranging from vital medications to toilet paper to basic foodstuffs. A video recently went viral of a starving homeless women in the Venezuelan resort town on Rio Chico, about 80 miles east of Caracas, skinning and eating a cat in front of a shocked crowd.
Even those Venezuelans who have a valid passport will have a tough time traveling abroad as the country’s official currency, the bolivar, has basically become worthless, with one bolívar being worth about 10 cents in the U.S.