Venezuelans in US rejoice at Maduro exit even as doubts remain

Venezuelans around the U.S. celebrated the downfall of Nicolás Maduro, expressing hope for the future of their country even as uncertainty swirls after the longtime leader’s forced removal and arrest by U.S. forces.

A crowd of jubilant Venezuelans wearing national soccer and baseball jerseys danced, embraced and sang their national anthem Saturday outside El Arepazo, a restaurant in Doral, Florida, a city west of Miami where more than a third of residents are of Venezuelan descent. Caravans of cars honked as people waved Venezuelan and U.S. flags, and a few shouts of “Viva Trump” rang out over the noise.

The exultation on the streets of Florida, in Venezuelan communities in Texas and as far away as Spain stood in contrast to the reaction in Caracas after the overnight attack by the U.S.. The streets of the capital were quiet Saturday as Venezuelans lined up outside grocery stores and gas stations amid worries about the nation’s future.

But the overthrow of Maduro drew passionate acclaim from Venezuelans in the U.S.

“After so much suffering and what we’ve been through, including the rigged elections, we’re happy he was captured,” said Johan Brito, a 30-year-old from Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, who has been in the U.S. for five years.

Switching to English from Spanish, he added, “We can have better lives. I want to go back so bad because my family is there, I have two daughters there, I have everything there. I’m making money here to send there.”

For many of the millions of Venezuelans who fled economic hardship under Maduro’s reign — hundreds of thousands of whom sought asylum in the U.S. – his exit is the fulfillment of a long-held dream. They’re grateful to President Donald Trump, even as he has also helped fan anti-immigrant sentiment with a special focus on Venezuelans. Since taking office, Trump scrapped humanitarian protections for many of the Venezuelans in the U.S., frequently accusing them of gang ties and rampant criminality.

“I’m celebrating the freedom of my country. I’ve been alive 21 years and haven’t seen it until today,” said Juan Gutiérrez, who wore a red Make America Great Again hat at the gathering in Doral. Asked if he gives credit to the U.S. government, he said “of course, 100%, they’ve helped us a lot, despite receiving a lot of criticism.”

In Katy, Texas, a city near Houston that has been a longtime center of Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., a celebration is planned for a local thoroughfare thronged with Venezuelan restaurants. Facebook users on groups like “Venezolanos en Katy” cheered the move, calling for a “free Venezuela” and sharing a cartoon of Trump dancing with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Thousands of Venezuelans gathered in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol to celebrate the news, chanting “freedom” and “the regime has fallen” as music blared and flags waved. Almost 400,000 Venezuelans are living in Spain.

Still, celebrations of Maduro’s demise were tempered by doubts about Trump’s plan for his administration to “run Venezuela” until a leadership transition could be organized.

“I don’t understand exactly what he means by ‘running’ the country, and I don’t know if I want to know,” said Adelys Ferro, a human rights activist and leading advocate for Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S.

Trump said the U.S. will work with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to transition to a democratically elected government, but she and other regime leaders have thus far appeared uncooperative. He also dismissed Machado as a viable option for now.

In an appearance on state television surrounded by military brass, Rodríguez called for Maduro’s return from custody, describing his capture as “barbaric” and a “kidnapping.”

Trump offered few other details on how he planned to administer Venezuela, saying it would be done “with a group” largely comprised of senior U.S. officials and with an emphasis on repairing oil infrastructure and making sure the people of Venezuela were “also taken care of.”

The arrest of Maduro also drew a swift response in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani — in his third day in office — said he called Trump to register opposition to what Mamdani described as a regime-change approach.

On the streets of Miami, where immigrants have fled dictatorships in places like Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, Maduro’s removal fanned speculation that his fall could trigger changes in other regimes.

Trump won support among Latino voters in the last election amid hopes that he would take a hard line against those governments despite his aggressive immigration policies that have often targeted people from Latin America. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban American, has long espoused his wish to see the end of the communist regime south of Key West.

Some Venezuelans in the U.S. emphasized caution about the future even as they reveled in Maduro’s exit.

TPS program

“I’m glad they captured Maduro and his wife, but we need to remain calm because there are still others left” from his inner circle, said Mario Rauseo, a Venezuelan-American in Davie, Florida, who’s lived in the U.S. since 2014. “We need to see how the transitional government is formed.”

Venezuelans were among the largest group of migrants crossing the Mexican border to seek asylum during the Biden administration, and many were granted temporary protections based in part on the political situation in their home country.

But roughly 600,000 people lost humanitarian protections earlier this year and deportations to Venezuela resumed.

Ferro, the human-rights activist, pleaded for Trump to take a kinder view of the Venezuelans in the U.S. He dismissed the president’s contention that many of the migrants are gang members.

Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins called the removal of TPS for Venezuelans “reckless, dangerous, and wrong,” in a statement released Saturday and called on Trump to reinstate the protections. “They have built lives here, contributed to our community, and deserve the security to remain while their homeland regains stability.”

Trump said getting rid of Maduro would help Venezuelans in the U.S. go home. He said U.S. oil companies would go in and generate an economic boom.

“When they see the jobs and they see the safety, they’re going to want to go back in record numbers,” he said at a news conference. “They love their country, and now they’re going to have a country to go back to. It’s a beautiful country, but it was destroyed by a very sick man.”

Time will tell. But Anna Ramos, a Venezuelan-American real estate agent and journalist in San Antonio, said Maduro’s capture marks “the beginning of a new phase.”

“It opens up possibilities for us to return, even to invest in the country,” she said. “For me, it would be a very interesting destination for both investment and retirement, depending on the circumstances.”

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(With assistance from Joe Lovinger, Patricia Laya, Alicia A. Caldwell, Sabrina Nelson Garcinuño and Myles Miller.)

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