AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made demonizing immigrants a central part of his presidential campaign. One of his favorite targets - migrants from Venezuela.
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DONALD TRUMP: Look at what's happening with some of these towns that are being talked about all over the world, but in a very horrible way, occupied by members of savage prison gangs from Venezuela.
45TH US PRES/GOP PRES CAND: Look at what's happening with some of these towns that are being talked about all over the world, but in a very horrible way, occupied by members of savage prison gangs from Venezuela.
CHANG: It's a false narrative, but it's one that's taking root even in parts of the Venezuelan community, as NPR's Adrian Florido reports from Miami.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: When Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in the late '90s, Gustavo Garagorry despaired over his country's socialist turn. He was part of the first wave of Venezuelans to leave. He fled to Miami.
GUSTAVO GARAGORRY: So I have here more than 22 years. I'm working very hard, and I'm very happy to be here.
FLORIDO: He's now a U.S. citizen, a business consultant, also president of the Venezuelan American Republican Club of Miami Dade. And in the last few years, he says he's watched in horror as a new wave of migrants from his country have arrived at the southern border seeking asylum and been let into the U.S.
GARAGORRY: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "I don't want to generalize," he says, but...
GARAGORRY: A lot of the people that's come from Venezuela is criminals that's come into this country.
FLORIDO: This idea that most of the Venezuelans coming to the U.S. are thugs and delinquents has taken firm root in conservative media and among Republican politicians. Donald Trump repeats it constantly, like during his recent visit to Aurora, Colorado.
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45TH US PRES/GOP PRES CAND: In Venezuela, their crime rate went down 72%. You know why? - because they took the criminals out of Caracas, and they put them along your border. And they said, if you ever come back, we're going to kill you.
45TH US PRES/GOP PRES CAND: In Venezuela, their crime rate went down 72%. You know why? - because they took the criminals out of Caracas, and they put them along your border. And they said, if you ever come back, we're going to kill you.
FLORIDO: There's no evidence that claim is true. Police in some cities are concerned about a Venezuelan prison gang called Tren de Aragua, but local mayors say Trump has grossly exaggerated its reach. And data makes clear that migrants commit fewer crimes - far fewer - than native-born Americans. Still, Garagorry takes Trump's side on this, and he worries about the public perception.
GARAGORRY: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "What stays in people's minds?" he asks. "That Venezuelans are doing harm." That's why he likes to hear Donald Trump promise he's going to carry out mass deportations.
GARAGORRY: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "Our community doesn't want these people," he says. "Deport them." His sentiments get to the heart of a growing rift in the Venezuelan community between older and newer immigrants. They also help explain why some recent polls show more Latinos expressing support for deportation, and why Democrats have slipped with Latinos while Republicans have gained in some places.
VALENTINA PEREDA: Listen, I think there's a very real desire to protect our position here in the United States as a new community.
FLORIDO: Valentina Pereda is Venezuelan American. She cofounded a group called The Venezuelan Diaspora Project to counter the image of Venezuelan migrants as criminals.
PEREDA: If the data's telling us that less than 1% of these migrants are actually committing violent crimes, then I think it would be best to start looking at the data and not just what sensationalist narratives are trying to condition us with.
FLORIDO: Pereda first started realizing how effectively those narratives about Venezuelans were spreading among other Venezuelans when she heard her mother repeating them.
PEREDA: Then I was very confused (laughter). I said, excuse me. You were an undocumented immigrant yourself for 21 years, until I was able to give you papers. What is this feeling? And, you know - and she started saying things like, yeah, but, you know, these people are different.
FLORIDO: Pereda pointed out to her mom that most of the Venezuelans coming now are poorer than those who came when she did two or three decades ago and that many are darker skinned, but that they're coming for the same reasons. Her mother, Gisela Pereda, says what really changed her mind was hiring some newer Venezuelan migrants at her catering business and hearing firsthand about their arduous journey on foot across seven countries.
GISELA PEREDA: Even we Venezuelan people living in this country have no clue about all that nightmare.
FLORIDO: Yeah.
PEREDA: You really have to be brave.
FLORIDO: Her daughter, Valentina, through her Diaspora Project, helps Venezuelan migrants to showcase their artistic and cultural talents. And she warns fellow Venezuelans about the dangers of demonizing their countrymen.
PEREDA: Because what are you going to do when the narrative balloons to a place where there's so much distrust for the Venezuelan community that people even start distrusting you?
FLORIDO: Instead, they should fight back, she tells them, so those narratives can't take hold. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Miami. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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