“I was targeted by a colectivos group for giving away flyers in a pro-government area,” says Julio Garcia, 32, an asylee who fled Venezuela first to Miami and then to Washington, D.C. in 2016. Armed paramilitary groups, known as colectivos, are far-left Venezuelan armed gangs that support Nicolás Maduro and the ruling party. Colectivos usually operate in poverty-stricken areas and attack individuals by engaging in extortion, kidnapping, and drug trafficking.