Venezuela warns citizens not to travel to US

Caracas also urged Venezuelans living in the US to return, calling it a 'dangerous country'.

The Venezuelan government has told its citizens to avoid travelling to the US, while urging those living there to leave immediately.In a travel alert issued via a Telegram video on Sunday, the Venezuelan foreign ministry urged its compatriots to "protect their lives and those of their families and return to their homeland". It described the US as a "dangerous country where human rights do not exist for immigrants". "There is no American dream there, only nightmares. Our duty is to denounce this reality and demand respect for our compatriots," the ministry said. Foreign Minister Yván Gil claimed that it was dangerous to be a Latino, Afro-descendant or Venezuelan migrant in the US. "The police shoot first and ask questions later," he said. As evidence of the US' persecution of migrants, Caracas cited the case of hundreds of migrants who were deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador earlier this year. Venezuela says the deportees are living "under inhumane conditions" and are being "subjected to psychological torture".Response to US warningCaracas' travel warning comes after the US government issued its own alert last Tuesday, urging its citizens not to travel to Venezuela for any reason and to leave the country immediately because of the high risk of arbitrary detention.In a statement, the US State Department said there were "serious risks" of unjust detentions, violent crime and civil unrest in the Latin American country. According to the official note, Venezuela is the country with the highest number of unjustly detained US citizens. The US does not have an embassy or consulate in Venezuela, so it cannot offer consular assistance to its citizens there.Last year, Venezuela's authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro cracked down on mass protests following a disputed election victory, with international experts accusing his administration of widespread human rights abuses.