Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S. are on edge expecting that family and friends who are still in Venezuela will flee their homes in the coming weeks and months — a move that immigration policy analysts suggest could have major implications on the southern border amid the presidential elections.

“I fear there will be another mass exodus from Venezuela, and that is getting ready to happen now and the reason I fear that is because I already know just from talking with people,” said Daniel DiMartino, a Venezuelan immigrant who is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Columbia University in New York and graduate fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank.

“A lot of people gave this election and this process of protest as the last shot of their hope. A lot of people delayed leaving or never left because of hope that things would change,” said DiMartino.

Venezuela’s recent July 28 election was seen by Venezuelans as the final chance in whether totalitarian leader Nicolas Maduro would recognize the results of the democratic election or refuse to concede despite losing.

Patricia Andrade, a Venezuelan immigrant who came to the U.S. 35 years ago and now helps Venezuelans resettling in Florida through her organization Raices Venezolanos, said many waited until after the election to decide what to do and thousands of others have been jailed for protesting in the streets after Maduro claimed victory.

“It is difficult because Venezuelans do not want to leave, but there are no guarantees that the opposition will succeed. On Jan. 10, we will know if the winning opposition candidate manages to be sworn in as president, but that is decided beforehand, on the streets, and there could be a civil war,” said Andrade.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled over the past decade with the majority having departed over the past five years. Neighboring countries have taken in the majority of those leaving as many migrants do not wish to go too far away in case they can return to Venezuela, but that looked less likely after Maduro’s most recent refusal to step down.

“Colombia is already talking about the increase in the number of Venezuelans leaving, and today specifically those leaving through Brazil. People have already started leaving Venezuela, but that is not the majority,” said Andrade on Monday. “Many Venezuelans are in hiding because they are being sought after to be arrested. Yesterday, they opened a closed prison to put all those who protested because there is no space left in the jails.”

Leaders of Colombia and Brazil have called for a new election, while the White House told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that the results should stand.

The White House has not imposed harsh consequences on Maduro but has broken with other nations who want a second election.

“The United States’s position has not changed. We do not support new elections in Venezuela,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement.

María Corina Machado, the country’s political opposition leader, warned this month that if Maduro was not forced out of office, the Western Hemisphere could expect a mass exodus, furthering increasing the number seen by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“If Maduro chooses to stay by force, the only thing we will see is a wave of migration like never before: three, four, five million Venezuelans in a very short span of time,” Corina Machado told reporters.

Lucie Kneip of the international policy think tank Atlantic Council wrote in a blog post last week that predictions on just how many people will migrate are “too early” to make at this point, but regional leaders “should prepare for the worst.”

Some neighboring and nearby countries in Latin America have opened their arms to Venezuelans, while others have been hostile, using the military to push out migrants and even burning down a migrant camp in Chile.

Venezuela is a totalitarian state and home to the world’s largest oil reserve. When then-President Hugo Chavez died in 2013, Nicolas Maduro assumed the role. The following year, global oil prices dropped, leading to economic freefall in Venezuela.

Maduro attempted to maintain power and control as unrest brewed nationwide, censoring media, manipulating elections, and repressing political enemies.

As of last year, the United Nations estimated that 1-in-4 Venezuelans, or nearly 8 million people, had left the country and resettled elsewhere. Now those who remained in Venezuela hoping for a different outcome out of the recent July election are looking to leave.

Leaders and immigration experts anticipate a heavy outflow from the country.

Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, U.S. law enforcement at the border has apprehended 469,000 Venezuelan citizens illegally entering the country, and another 395,000 were encountered at ports of entry seeking asylum or entering through Biden-era programs that allow migrants to bypass the land border and fly into the country.

The new arrivals at the U.S. border have far-outpaced migration seen from Venezuela at any time before 2021.

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In response, the Biden administration has allowed some Venezuelans to apply to be paroled into the U.S. from abroad. Under the CBP One app, Venezuelans may apply to be admitted and if approved, fly into the U.S.

Biden has also allowed more than 300,000 Venezuelans illegally in the U.S. to apply for temporary protection from deportation for the next two years. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump has vowed to crack down on the “open border” and bar migrants from being released into the U.S. if they enter the country illegally.