Carmen Maria Montiel, a Venezuela-born Republican running for Congress in Texas, lays out a blunt warning about what happened to her homeland and why the United States should take the threat seriously. She points to socialism, porous borders, cartel corruption, and foreign alignments as the drivers of Venezuela’s collapse while supporting recent U.S. actions aimed at drug networks near its coast.
Montiel remembers a Venezuela that once prospered on oil and promise before political decay set in. Her background as a young Miss Venezuela and later a Miss Universe runner-up sits against that memory, and it sharpens the contrast she draws between what was and what followed. She frames the nation’s fall as a political choice that churned into economic ruin and lawlessness.
“Socialism and open borders,” Montiel said, are what sent her country into decline. She ties those policies directly to rising crime and drug trafficking, and she points to the collapse of public institutions as the consequence. Her view is clear: poor policy choices, not fate, hollowed out Venezuela.
“We got the influx of illegal immigrants, crime went up, drugs started to be a problem,” she said. “The first thing they destroyed was the healthcare system. Venezuela used to have one of the most wonderful healthcare systems — it was paid for, it was our social security. Because the country was so rich, it provided so many services to the Venezuelan people. And of course, no country has the infrastructure for a vertical growth of the population.” These are the specifics she uses to explain the social unraveling.
Montiel left for the United States for college in 1988 and watched from afar as Hugo Chávez staged failed coups and the country erupted into unrest. “I decided I’m gonna stay a little longer, see if things get better,” she said. “But they never did.” Those years, she says, marked the turning point from democratic drift to authoritarian rule.
She traces a straight line from Chávez to Nicolás Maduro, saying corruption and cartel influence became intertwined with state power. “Communism always runs out of money,” Montiel said. In her telling, oil income evaporated and criminal enterprise filled the vacuum, producing a regime she calls criminal and ideologically bankrupt.
U.S. authorities have accused members of Maduro’s circle of narcotics trafficking, and sanctions have targeted officials for corruption and ties to hostile actors abroad. In Montiel’s view, exposing military complicity and dismantling cartel networks are not optional steps but essential ones to weaken a regime she describes bluntly. She supports the recent military actions against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs to American shores.
Montiel backs the strikes and the broader pressure campaign because she sees the regime as a direct threat to U.S. safety and regional stability. “Venezuela presents a very high risk to the United States,” she said. “It’s the drug trafficking, the Tren de Aragua trafficking … the problems that many Venezuelan people escaped, now we’re facing in the United States.”
Officials have also stepped up legal pressure on Maduro, including a large reward for information leading to his arrest, and analysts debate whether U.S. operations have the broader aim of forcing his removal. Montiel makes no mystery of her stance: “This is a criminal communist regime and we should never remove the word ‘communist,’” she said. She argues Venezuelans would welcome help getting rid of the dictatorship and pushing a real path to recovery.
“The people that are still in Venezuela are supporters of President Donald Trump because they’re screaming for freedom,” she said. Montiel warns that toppling a regime is only the beginning, not a silver bullet; “The country is pretty much destroyed,” she said. “It’s worse than any third world country. It’s going to take probably 30 years to get Venezuela back to what it used to be.”
Montiel has translated those experiences into a political run in Texas, entering the Nov. 4, 2025 special election for the 18th Congressional District. Her message is straightforward and hawkish: homeland security, border control, and a firm stance against regimes that export crime and chaos. The campaign rests on the belief that lessons from Venezuela matter to American voters and that firm, principled action can protect U.S. interests while standing with people who long for freedom.
