“Se acabaron los asilos chimbos”: What Venezuela’s Interior Minister Said, and Why It Belongs in the Record

A short clip has been circulating among Venezuelans in South Florida. In it, the man who commands Venezuela’s police says the asylum claims are over, because the persecution was never real. We located the program’s own published text of what he read, and this article sets out what it says, what it does not say, and why a statement like this matters to a case that is still pending.

What was said

The passage appears in a “Patriota VIP” letter — the program’s recurring device, in which Mr. Cabello reads dispatches from a supposed informant — published on the program’s website at 8:49 p.m. on September 9, the night the episode aired. The relevant part, in the original:

“Nuestro amigo Murphy, el patriota cooperante que continúa en el FBI, me adelantó que el reciente fallo que cambia los criterios para otorgar asilo en Estados Unidos ahora deben ajustarse a la nueva realidad política venezolana. Es decir, se acabaron los asilos chimbos porque finalmente expiró la narrativa de la supuesta persecución. Esta decisión es producto de las investigaciones que se han venido adelantando desde hace tiempo sobre las redes de carácter político que promovieron una migración masiva y cometieron fraude migratorio alegando motivos políticos. En ese fraude están incluidos los políticos que vendieron cartas, que inventaron noticias y hasta construyeron testigos. Y te adelanto algo … más de uno le da miedo la reactivación de los canales de cooperación en materia policial. No digo más, pero por ahí pronto vendrán los tiros.”

Our translation: “Our friend Murphy, the cooperating patriot who is still at the FBI, tipped me that the recent ruling changing the criteria for granting asylum in the United States must now adjust to the new Venezuelan political reality. In other words, the fake asylums are over, because the narrative of supposed persecution has finally expired. This decision is the product of investigations that have been under way for some time into the political networks that promoted mass migration and committed immigration fraud claiming political motives. That fraud includes the politicians who sold letters, invented news, and even manufactured witnesses. And I’ll tell you something in advance … more than one of them is afraid of the reactivation of police-cooperation channels. I’ll say no more, but the shots are coming soon.”

In the broadcast clip, after reading the passage, Mr. Cabello adds, off the page: “Los coyotes, pues. Los coyotes de Voluntad Popular y los coyotes de Primero Justicia. Una banda de delincuentes, pero unos delincuentes de marca mayor” — naming two opposition parties as “coyotes” and “a gang of criminals.” Those lines are not in the published text. He said much the same on September 28, at a party press conference reported by teleSUR: asked who the coyotes were, he answered, “la dirigencia de Voluntad Popular y lo que era Primero Justicia.” At that same appearance he called on Venezuelan migrants to come home.

Who said it, and where

Diosdado Cabello is the Minister of Popular Power for Interior Relations, Justice and Peace, the sectoral vice-president for security, and secretary general of the governing party. The Interior Ministry oversees the national police and the CICPC, the criminal-investigations police. Con El Mazo Dando airs on the state channel VTV. The “Murphy” informant is a recurring character in these letters; in November 2025 the same “Murphy” was described as posted at the White House. No independent Venezuelan or international outlet reported the September 9 remarks at the time; the September 28 repetition was carried by state media.

What it is not

It is not an FBI finding. There is no public record of any FBI communication of the kind described, and the “cooperating patriot” is a rhetorical device the program has used for years.

It is not an accurate account of any U.S. ruling. The letter names no court and no case. Five days earlier, on September 4, the Board of Immigration Appeals — part of the Department of Justice, not the FBI — decided Matter of A-E-V-M-, and Venezuelan press described it in language close to the letter’s. That timing makes A-E-V-M- the likely referent, but the connection is an inference. What is not an inference is what A-E-V-M- held: that the change of government is a changed country condition to be weighed case by case, and that the case before it had to be sent back for an individualized analysis. It did not find any claim fraudulent. No U.S. authority has declared Venezuelan asylum claims fraudulent as a class.

The accusation against the two parties came with no evidence. We report it because a minister said it on state television; we do not repeat it as fact.

Why it matters to a pending case

Since A-E-V-M-, the question in every Venezuelan asylum case is whether this particular applicant’s fear remains well-founded after the change of government. Evidence of how the current government regards people who left and claimed persecution goes directly to that question, and here the official in charge of the police has supplied it. He has said, on the record, that having sought asylum abroad on political grounds is fraud; that the government has been investigating the “networks” behind it; that police cooperation with the United States is being reactivated; and that “shots” are coming. That is a statement of official attitude toward a class of people that includes every Venezuelan with a pending claim.

It does not stand alone. The UN Fact-Finding Mission wrote on September 16 that the security forces “retain essentially the same structures, policies and practices,” and that “Venezuelans who have fled abroad are still in need of international protection.” Of Mr. Cabello specifically, the Mission’s September 2026 report states that it “has linked Mr. González and Mr. Cabello to serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity,” and its detailed findings conclude there are reasonable grounds to believe he bore responsibility for violations and should be investigated. Its 2024 report found that he “published images of several of the arrests carried out in the framework of Operation Tun Tun on his television programme … in a threatening fashion to generate terror among the population.” He was indicted in the Southern District of New York in 2020 on narco-terrorism charges and has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018.

What the record shows about people who return

This is where precision matters most, so here is exactly what we found and did not find.

The Mission’s detailed 2026 findings document one case in point: a businessman who had left in 2024 and returned voluntarily on June 14, 2026, was detained on arrival at the Maracaibo airport by the CICPC at its Interpol post, handed to a unit of the Interior Ministry, held for about three days, then sent to the El Rodeo I prison, charged with terrorism financing, conspiracy and treason. His family did not know where he was for roughly two weeks. Separately, the government’s own account of a February 2026 deportation flight from the United States states that the returnees were received by the CICPC, the National Guard, the SEBIN and the national police and “sometidos a interrogatorios cortos.”

We did not find a documented case of a person deported from the United States being detained or prosecuted because they had sought asylum. Anyone who tells you that has happened should be asked for the source. The minister’s statement is evidence of intent and attitude; it is not, yet, evidence of a practice. A careful record says both things.

Using it

The letter is dated, attributable, and published on the program’s own site; the clip is public. Material of this kind is the sort of evidence an adjudicator can weigh in an individualized analysis, and it would need a certified English translation to be filed. Whether it helps a given case, and how it fits with the rest of that person’s evidence, is a question for counsel. What should not happen is that a Venezuelan with a pending claim sees this clip and concludes, as the minister intends, that the claim is finished. It is not. It is being decided one case at a time, and what he said is part of the record on which it will be decided.

Our Venezuela country-conditions library collects the primary reporting referenced here.

This article is general legal information about a public statement by a foreign official and published reporting on it, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Accusations quoted here are reported as the speaker's statements and are not adopted as fact. How any statement or country-conditions evidence bears on a particular asylum case depends on the facts of that case. Foreign-language material would require certified translation to be filed as evidence. Consult a qualified immigration attorney about your own case. This website is attorney advertising.