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Revelers chanted “freedom” and draped Venezuelan flags over their shoulders Saturday in South Florida to celebrate the American military attack that toppled the government of Nicolas Maduro – a stunning result that they had long expected, but which left them wondering what would come next in their troubled country.
People gathered for a rally in Doral, Florida — the Miami suburb where President Donald Trump owns a golf course and about half the population is of Venezuelan descent — as word spread that the Venezuelan president had been captured and expelled from the country.
Outside El Arepazo restaurant, a hotspot for Venezuelan culture in Doral, a man held a piece of cardboard with “Libertad” scrawled in black marker. It was a sentiment expressed by other Venezuelans hoping for a fresh start for their home country as they chanted “Freedom! Freedom ! Freedom ! »
“We’re like everyone else, it’s a combination of feelings, of course,” said Alejandra Arrieta, who came to the United States in 1997. “There are fears. There are enthusiasm. We’ve been waiting for so many years for this. Something had to happen in Venezuela. We all need freedom.”
Trump insisted Saturday that the U.S. government lead the country at least temporarily and that was already the case. The action marked the culmination of a campaign of increasing pressure by the Trump administration on the oil-rich South American nation, as well as weeks of planning aimed at tracking Maduro’s behavioral habits.
About 8 million people have fled Venezuela since 2014, settling first in neighboring countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. After the COVID-19 pandemic, they increasingly set their sights on the United States, trekking through the jungles of Colombia and Panama or flying to the United States on humanitarian parole with a financial sponsor.
In Doral, upper-middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs came to invest in real estate and businesses when socialist Hugo Chávez won the presidency in the late 1990s. They were followed by political opponents and entrepreneurs who started small businesses. In recent years, more low-income Venezuelans have come to work in the service sector.
They are doctors, lawyers, beauticians, construction workers and cleaners. Some are naturalized U.S. citizens or living in the country illegally with U.S.-born children. Others overstay their tourist visas, seek asylum or are granted some form of temporary status.
Niurka Meléndez, who fled her native Venezuela in 2015, said Saturday she hoped Maduro’s ouster would improve life in her native country. Meléndez immigrated to New York, where she co-founded Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, a group that works to empower the lives of immigrants. She became a fierce advocate for change in her home country, where she said her compatriots were “facing a humanitarian crisis.”
She hopes that these difficulties will end thanks to American intervention.
“For us, this is just the beginning of the justice that we need,” Melendez said in a telephone interview.
Her country has reached a “breaking point” due to forced displacement, repression, hunger and fear, she said. She called for international humanitarian support to help Venezuela’s recovery.
“Removing an authoritarian system responsible for these crimes creates the possibility, not a guarantee, but the possibility of recovery,” she said. “A future without criminal control over institutions is the minimum condition for rebuilding a country based on justice, the rule of law and democratic guarantees. »
