New York — In the days following the Trump administration Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro In a late-night military raid, Alejandra Salima spoke to fellow Venezuelan migrants in her role as an advocate. She said that most vocal emotions, like hers, oscillate between joy and fear.
the removal “It’s a big problem,” said Salima, who fled to the United States three years ago with her 7-year-old son and is helping other Venezuelans at the National Alliance for Temporary Protection Order’s office in Miami. She said that with the Maduro-led regime still in effect, “at this moment, returning would put me and my son in danger.”
For more than 770,000 Venezuelans living in the United States, the reactions to Trump’s aggressive moves in the country they left behind — and the country that took them in — are as intense as they are complex.
Many are thrilled by the ouster of Maduro, who harassed and imprisoned political opponents while president of the country. Economic collapseWhich led to the expulsion of millions of Venezuelans from the country. But as they try to figure out what’s next for them and the families and friends still in Venezuela, many share Salima’s conflicted feelings.
The Trump administration’s move to deport Venezuelans who do not have permanent residency has heightened concern. Many of them were allowed to remain in the United States after being granted Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, Trump canceled After taking office. At the same time, the fear sown by the government Maduro left behind makes many wary of returning.
“First, they caught Maduro, and I feel happy, happy, and grateful to the Trump administration,” said Manuel Coronel, a lawyer who left Venezuela in 2017 and now lives north of Salt Lake City. But he worries that change will be too limited.
“They caught him, but the criminals are still there,” said Coronel, 54, who works in an immigration law office. “There is no new government. Everything is exactly the same.”
The tensions belie the assertions of the Minister of Homeland Security Kristi NoemWho confirmed that “the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans I heard from or spoke to are enthusiastic about the changes.”
“They have more opportunities to return home, achieve more success and provide for their families today than they did a week ago when Maduro was still in power,” Noem said last week.
But in interviews with Venezuelans living in communities across the United States, there was little sign of a rush to return.
“Thank God we are here,” said Jose Luis Rojas, who ended up in New York City after fleeing the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in 2018.
Rojas, 31, told how hyperinflation in Venezuela, which exceeded 1 million percent the year he fled, made it impossible to buy necessities such as diapers after his partner became pregnant. They went first to Ecuador and then to Peru, but left to escape crime, joining thousands of Venezuelans who migrated on foot through Panama’s Darien Gap jungle.
Since the couple and their son arrived in the United States, Rojas has received political asylum, a work permit and a driver’s license.
In an interview this week at a Venezuelan restaurant on a New York City street lined with immigrant-run businesses, Rojas welcomed Maduro’s ouster “so that there can be change in Venezuela, because a lot of people are suffering.”
But he expressed doubts about the Trump administration’s tough policies toward Venezuelans in the United States that have already prompted a number of his friends to leave for countries in South America and elsewhere.
For Venezuelans in the United States, Trump “has done good things and done bad things,” Rojas said as he and his wife ate the restaurant’s $30 special: a large plate of French fries, cassava, corn cakes, sausage, beef, chicken, plantains, fried pork rinds and cheese.
“It all depends on your point of view.”
About 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country over the past decade, the vast majority of them heading elsewhere in Latin America. Hundreds of thousands have made their way to the United States, large numbers settling in suburban communities such as Kissimmee, Florida, outside Orlando, and Hermann, Utah, outside Salt Lake City.
Venezuelans quickly became among the largest nationalities immigrating to the United States after COVID-19, attracted in part by job opportunities. The Biden administration offered new or expanded temporary legal protections, which Trump largely ended after taking office. Hundreds of thousands more have been released into the United States after entering illegally from Mexico to seek asylum or other relief in immigration court.
For people like Jesus Martinez, who fled to the United States in 2021 after facing physical threats and persecution, “life in Venezuela is behind us.”
Martinez, who now lives with his wife and children in Orem, Utah, and has applied for political asylum, remembers how life in Venezuela became unbearable. He said that while it is a relief that Maduro has been ousted, the Trump administration’s push to bring Venezuelans back to a country whose government they still do not trust represents a paradox.
“It is clear that the situation is contradictory,” said Martinez, 50 years old. He noted that it will take a long time before Maduro loyalists are rooted out before Venezuela can transition to a stable democracy.
Salima (48 years old), who works in an advocacy office in Miami, was active in opposition politics in Venezuela, where she trained as a lawyer and participated in peaceful protests. She came to the United States legally with her son, now 10, under a temporary permit on humanitarian grounds, which Trump revoked. She is thrilled to have ousted Maduro.
But these feelings are tempered by concerns about Venezuela’s future while his allies remain in power. Salima said her mother is still in Venezuela, and even with Maduro gone, she refuses to discuss politics during conversations over an encrypted app, fearing that government authorities still in power will find out.
As this reality persists, Salima said, the impending end of temporary protected status for Venezuelans makes her feel “very unstable.”
Demonstrating with other Venezuelans this week in Doral, Florida, to celebrate Maduro’s ouster, Jorge Galicia recounted his escape in 2018 after a fellow student activist was arrested during a wave of demonstrations against the regime.
After settling in the Miami area, Galicia said he joined Charlie Kirk’s conservative Turning Point USA movement, whose politics closely align with Trump’s. But Galicia, 30, said his support for the Trump administration began to decline as the White House’s crackdown on immigrants intensified, leading to the separation of families.
Now, with Maduro gone, many Venezuelans who fled to neighboring countries and the United States are expected to begin returning home. But he hopes Trump will reconsider his decision to deport Venezuelans like him who have built new lives in the United States but still lack permanent residency.
“The reason we are here is because there was a terrible regime that forced millions of us to leave,” Galicia said, wrapped in the Venezuelan flag. But he said: “Everyone deserves to have the choice to return home.”
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Associated Press writers Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Josh Goodman in Doral, Florida; Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.