Between 2004 and 2006, more than 420,000 foreigners, many of them formerly undocumented immigrants, were granted Venezuelan nationality. This article presents the (historical) context, the Venezuelan immigration and nationality policies, and the three core elements of the naturalization campaign. It was integrated into a programme to distribute identity documents to the population (the Misión Identidad), had a specific legal and administrative foundation (a presidential decree), and was carried out by way of large-scale naturalization ceremonies. Criticisms of the campaign included the allegation that naturalizing hundreds of thousands of formerly undocumented immigrants tampered with the foundation of political representation. In order to scrutinize this claim, the article describes the government’s reasons for implementing the naturalization scheme, as well as the criticisms expressed by the political opposition and civil society, as reported in Venezuelan print media, and relates this to how the naturalization campaign has been implemented in practice.

Publication details and link to source: Tobias Schwarz, ‘‘I won’t naturalize foreigners like crazy’: The Naturalization Campaign in Venezuela, 2004-2006’, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, April 2016.