In Support of Application for Asylum (Form I-589)
I, Brigzen Aroldo Coronado Lobo, declare under penalty of perjury under the laws
of the United States that the following is true and correct to the best of my knowledge:
I. PERSONAL BACKGROUND
My name is Brigzen Aroldo Coronado Lobo. I was born on September 18, 1975, in Venezuela. I am a Venezuelan citizen. I am the father of two sons: Alan David Coronado Dávila, born on November 16, 2002, who is an adult and files his own separate asylum application, and Kevin David Coronado Dávila, born on July 30, 2009, who is a minor and currently lives with me in Bozeman, Montana. Kevin is included as a derivative beneficiary in this application. My former spouse, María Dalia Dávila Moreno, born on January 28, 1981, also files her own separate asylum application.
I grew up and lived in Venezuela until I was an adult. I studied and worked there, building a professional and personal life over many years. Prior to leaving Venezuela, I made several visits to the United States between 2009 and 2016. Those visits were temporary and I returned to Venezuela after each one. I arrived in the United States on February 18, 2017, through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, on a B-2 visitor visa. I have remained in the United States continuously since that date. I have not returned to Venezuela.
II. MY POLITICAL OPPOSITION TO THE CHAVISTA GOVERNMENT
I have never supported the government of Hugo Chávez or Nicolás Maduro. From the time the Chavista movement took control of Venezuela’s political and institutional life, I disagreed openly with its direction. I believed — and continue to believe — that the Venezuelan government has systematically dismantled the country’s economy, its institutions, and the freedoms of its people. I expressed these views openly in my daily life: at work, in my neighborhood, and among family and friends.
My opposition was not the result of a single event. It grew over years of living in a country where the government controlled more and more of everyday life, where those who disagreed were watched and pressured, and where speaking openly carried increasing risk. I participated in opposition protests in Venezuela during the years of major political mobilization. I do not have documentary evidence of that participation at this time, but I am seeking declarations from friends and acquaintances who knew me in Venezuela and who can confirm that my opposition to the government was known and openly expressed in my community.
III. MY LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE LOSS OF TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS
After arriving in the United States on February 18, 2017, I worked to build a stable and lawful life here. I obtained Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuela, which was first granted to me with an effective date of August 16, 2022. My TPS was subsequently renewed, covering me through September 10, 2025. During this period, I was authorized to live and work lawfully in the United States. My sons Alan and Kevin, and my former spouse María, also held TPS during this period.
For several years, TPS represented my legal basis for remaining in the United States. While I always feared returning to Venezuela, the existence of TPS protection meant that the prospect of forced return was not immediate. That changed in the fall of 2025.
On November 7, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security terminated the 2021 Venezuela TPS designation. My TPS, my sons’ TPS, and my former spouse’s TPS all terminated on that date.
IV. MY FAMILY CONTEXT AND THE RISK IT CREATES
My family situation is complex, and I believe it is important to describe it honestly because it shapes the specific nature of my fear.
My brother, Rodney Coronado Lobo, had a public profile within Venezuela’s Chavista political ecosystem. He was involved with organizations linked to the Bolivarian government, participated in public political activities, and appeared in media and public events in support of the government. He was not a high official of the state, but his public association with the Chavista movement was real and documented.
Rodney currently lives in the United States. He obtained lawful permanent residence through his marriage to a United States citizen. They have daughters who are also United States citizens.
I want to be honest about something important: my brother continues to support the Venezuelan government. He does not share my political views. He believes the Chavista government is legitimate and democratic. He would not support this asylum application and would likely disagree with my characterization of the risks I face. I mention him because his history and his current life in the United States — together with my own prolonged presence here — create a specific profile that I believe Venezuelan authorities could view with suspicion.
The Venezuelan government has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it views with deep suspicion individuals who leave the country and build lives in the United States — particularly those who had any connection to government-aligned structures and later relocated abroad. My family presents precisely that kind of profile. My brother had a publicly visible association with a government-aligned political organization in Venezuela and now lives in the United States with a family of American citizens. I openly opposed that same government and have lived here for more than nine years, holding Temporary Protected Status for a portion of that time. In Venezuela’s current political environment — where the events of January 2026 have intensified the government’s focus on identifying traitors and those perceived as having collaborated with foreign interests — a family like mine raises exactly the kind of suspicion the regime acts on. My brother’s past proximity to government-aligned circles, combined with his current life in the United States, creates the conditions for the government to perceive our entire family as disloyal, as having betrayed the country, or as being connected to interests that the regime considers its enemies. That perception, whether accurate or not, is what I fear would follow me if I returned to Venezuela.
V. THE LEGAL AND POLITICAL FRAMEWORK THAT SHAPES MY FEAR
My is also grounded in what the Venezuelan government has formally established as the legal framework for identifying and prosecuting individuals it perceives as disloyal or connected to foreign interests.
In November 2024, the Venezuelan National Assembly enacted the Ley Orgánica Libertador Simón Bolívar contra el Bloqueo Imperialista y en Defensa de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Organic Law Libertador Simón Bolívar against the Imperialist Blockade and in Defense of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), published in Official Gazette No. 6,859 Extraordinary on November 29, 2024. This law uses deliberately broad language to criminalize any conduct that the government characterizes as promoting, supporting, invoking, or facilitating international sanctions, restrictive measures, or actions against Venezuela’s sovereignty. Penalties under this law include prison sentences of twenty-five to thirty years. The law also creates a National Registry of individuals suspected of such conduct, with immediate administrative consequences including asset freezes and prohibitions on entry into Venezuela.
The breadth of this law is what concerns me most. The government does not need to prove that a person materially participated in a sanction or a foreign policy decision. It only needs to determine — or allege — that a person promoted, favored, or supported such actions, even indirectly. For someone like me, who has lived in the United States for more than nine years, maintained TPS, and has family members who are United States citizens, the possibility that the government could characterize my circumstances as evidence of sympathy with American interests or support for international pressure against Venezuela is real and frightening.
On January 3, 2026, the Venezuelan government published Decree No. 5,200 in Official Gazette No. 6,954 Extraordinary, declaring a State of External Commotion across the entire national territory. The decree cited the events surrounding the capture of Nicolás Maduro that occurred on that same date. Article 5 of the decree ordered the immediate search and capture across all Venezuelan territory of any person involved in the promotion or support of what the government characterized as a United States armed attack against Venezuela. The language of that article is deliberately expansive: it encompasses promotion and support, not only direct material participation.
I am aware that these laws do not, by themselves, prove that I will be individually targeted. But they demonstrate the political and legal environment into which I would return. They establish that the Venezuelan government has created formal mechanisms — with the force of law — to investigate, register, and prosecute individuals it perceives as aligned with American interests or as threats to its authority. My profile fits precisely the kind of person these frameworks are designed to reach: a Venezuelan who lived in the United States for more than nine years, held TPS, has family members who are United States citizens, and was known in his community as someone who opposed the government.
VI. WHY I DID NOT APPLY FOR ASYLUM EARLIER
I want to address directly why I did not apply for asylum sooner after arriving in the United States in 2017.
When I arrived, my immediate concern was not filing a legal claim — it was surviving. I had no understanding of asylum law. I did not know how to articulate my fear in legal terms, and I was afraid that if I filed an application and it was denied, I would be placed in removal proceedings and forced to return to Venezuela immediately. That fear of making my situation worse kept me from acting.
When TPS became available to Venezuelans, I applied and received it. TPS gave me a lawful basis to remain and work in the United States. While I had TPS, the prospect of forced return was not immediate, and I focused on working and caring for my children. I did not fully understand at the time that TPS and asylum serve different legal purposes and offer different levels of protection.
When TPS was terminated on November 7, 2025, and I simultaneously lost my employment, I understood for the first time that the legal protection I had relied on was gone and that I needed to pursue asylum seriously. The weeks that followed were among the most difficult of my life in the United States. I experienced significant anxiety and financial instability. I found new employment in mid-December 2025, but the emotional and economic disruption of that period took time to stabilize. I contracted with an attorney beginning in December 2025, but after several months of working together, I concluded that the approach being proposed did not accurately reflect my situation or my fears. I was not willing to present a version of my case that was not truthful. After ending that attorney relationship in April 2026, I made the decision to prepare this application myself, grounding it entirely in facts I can honestly attest to.
VII. MY PARENTS’ RETURN TO VENEZUELA
My parents spent approximately two years in the United States under humanitarian parole. They returned to Venezuela in December 2024. I want to address this directly because I understand it may raise questions.
My parents returned to Venezuela not because they felt safe there, but because their humanitarian parole had expired and they had not pursued any other form of immigration protection. The decision to return was made largely under the influence of my brother Rodney, who arranged for their departure. My parents did not make an independent legal assessment of their safety.
VIII. WHY I FEAR RETURNING TO VENEZUELA
I fear returning to Venezuela because I believe, based on my knowledge of that country and its current government, that my life and freedom would be at serious risk.
I have lived in the United States for more than nine years. I held Temporary Protected Status for years. I have family members who are United States citizens. I was known in my community in Venezuela as someone who openly opposed the government. I come from a family with a publicly visible and complicated relationship to the Chavista political system. The combination of these facts creates a profile that the Venezuelan government — and those who act on its behalf — treats with hostility.
When I think about returning to Venezuela, I think concretely about what that return would look like. I would arrive at an airport controlled by a government whose security apparatus has access to databases, travel histories, and information about citizens who have lived abroad. I would be subject to questioning, potential detention, and ongoing surveillance.
Venezuela’s repressive apparatus includes several bodies whose involvement in political persecution has been widely documented. The SEBIN — Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional, or Bolivarian National Intelligence Service — functions as the government’s political police and has been associated with arbitrary detention, torture, and the suppression of political dissent. The DGCIM — Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar, or General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence — is the military intelligence body responsible for internal surveillance and has been identified as one of the primary tools of political repression within Venezuela, particularly against those perceived as threats to the armed forces or to the government’s security. In addition to these formal bodies, the government operates through colectivos — armed pro-government groups that function as paramilitary or parpolice forces within communities, enforcing political loyalty through intimidation, violence, and territorial control.
I do not believe there is any part of Venezuela where I could live safely. The reach of the Venezuelan government’s security apparatus is not limited to Caracas or to formal detention centers. Internal relocation would not protect me from a government that has the means and the motivation to monitor and act against individuals it identifies as disloyal or connected to foreign interests.
I also cannot seek protection from Venezuelan authorities. They are the source of the threat I fear. There is no independent judiciary, no free press, and no functioning civil society capable of protecting individuals from government persecution in Venezuela today.
IX. MY SON KEVIN DAVID CORONADO DÁVILA
My son Kevin David Coronado Dávila, born on July 30, 2009, is included in this application as a derivative beneficiary. Kevin arrived in the United States on October 4, 2018, through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He has lived continuously in the United States since that date and has not returned to Venezuela. He currently lives with me in Bozeman, Montana, and is enrolled in school here.
X. CONCLUSION
I am asking the United States government for protection from being returned to Venezuela. My fear is genuine. It is based on who I am, what I believe, how I have lived my life during more than nine years in this country, and the political and legal reality of Venezuela today.
I have tried in this declaration to be completely honest. I have not exaggerated my circumstances. I have acknowledged complexity where it exists, including the complicated situation of my brother and the fact that my parents returned to Venezuela. I have explained the delays in this application truthfully. What I cannot do is return to Venezuela. I genuinely believe that doing so would put my life and my freedom at serious risk, and I respectfully ask for the protection that this application seeks — for myself and for my son Kevin.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Executed on: ___________________________
_______________________________________
Brigzen Aroldo Coronado Lobo
Date of Birth: September 18, 1975
Bozeman, Montana