Natalie Pereira (C) cries as she says goodbye to her friend before her move to the U.S. with her family, after winning the Green Card lottery, at their home in Valencia April 6, 2014. As political strife drags on and an economic crisis brings soaring prices and shortages of even basic goods, Venezuela’s middle classes are increasingly seeing a future abroad. Tomas Paez, a Central University of Venezuela sociologist publishing a study about the diaspora, said up to 1.6 million people, or about 6 percent of the population, are living abroad. Almost 90 percent of them have left since 1999 and the exodus has been fastest in the last six years, toward the end of the Chavez era and into Maduro’s term, he said. Picture taken on April 6. To match Feature VENEZUELA-MIGRATION/ REUTERS/Jorge Silva (VENEZUELA – Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY IMMIGRATION)