‘Euphoria, complete exhilaration.’ That is how Miguel Portillo, 66, a Venezuelan migrant in Miami, described his feelings on the morning of 3 January as he watched news that Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s left-wing leader, and his wife had been seized in an American military operation in Caracas and taken to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.
Portillo, a former lawyer from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s western oil port, said he jumped for joy: ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.’ He rushed to join hundreds of other Venezuelans celebrating at El Arepazo, a restaurant in Miami’s El Doral district, where many exiles come to eat arepas, the maize dough patties that are a staple in Venezuela, and patacones, smashed fried plantains. El Doral is known as ‘Doralzuela’ for its large population of Venezuelan migrants.
Creeping doubts
Three weeks later, the mood at El Arepazo had changed. Waiter Juan Jose Cabrera, 35, a former journalist who left Venezuela’s western Zulia state three years ago, was more rueful about the situation back home. ‘We really don’t know what is going to happen.’
For Cabrera and many of the Venezuelan diaspora in Miami, these uncertainties have clouded their jubilation. Miami is a Latin American melting pot. Of the estimated 8 million Venezuelans who fled the political and economic turmoil of the past decade, 1.2 million are living in the US and 500,000 in Florida. ‘We have gone through so many disappointments in the past that it’s hard not to have doubts,’ said Portillo.
It made him anxious to see Delcy Rodriguez, the long-time faithful Maduro loyalist, now heading the Venezuelan government as its acting president, with the apparently enthusiastic endorsement of US President Donald Trump, a concern shared by many of his compatriots in the US. The presence of Diosdado Cabello in the post-Maduro government was also disturbing, said Cabrera. The feared interior minister is widely seen as the main architect of internal repression countless Venezuelans have faced.
Cabello’s insistence at a rally in Caracas on 6 January that the leftist ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, instigated by Hugo Chavez after 1999 and prolonged by Maduro, was still alive and well. ‘I don’t know what the Trump tactic will be to get rid of them,’ said Portillo, referring to the Maduro loyalists still governing Venezuela. ‘I certainly hope he’ll do that.’ Portillo is fearful of being sent back to Venezuela. His asylum claim is underway but until it is granted his situation is far from clear.
Trump’s immigration crackdown
‘That’s how most Venezuelans here in Florida feel,’ he said. Despite Trump’s tough anti-immigration rhetoric, many of the Venezuelan diaspora backed him in the 2024 election. Now, many of these people are the target of Trump’s immigration crackdown. They have been particularly dismayed by Trump’s portrayal of Venezuelans in the US as ‘criminals’ and members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan crime gang.
‘I’m very grateful, extremely thankful, to Trump. We all are,’ Portillo said. ‘What happened [on 3 January] is very positive for Venezuela, but for us? We are still here with the uncertainty of what’s going to happen to our status.’ Sitting near him in the restaurant, a 60-year-old Venezuelan estate agent who has lived in the US for 25 years said people are in a state of ‘tense calm’. ‘I have a sister, a nephew and my sister-in-law back in Venezuela,’ she said, not wanting to give her name. ‘There’s so much uncertainty there, and here. In the moment it was like, wow, my phone was about to explode! But the excitement died down when we saw who was left in charge.’
El Arepazo is steeped in the nostalgia and melancholy of exile. Its walls display old Venezuelan products, slogans such as ‘Yesterday’s Venezuela, how to forget it’, posters of anti-Maduro opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and signs thanking Trump. But many of its customers are reluctant to give their names, fearful about their immigration status while citing friends and relatives who have been held or deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams. The ICE squads are under intense scrutiny for their aggressive tactics.
Trump recently suspended the Temporary Protected Status which allowed around 500,000 Venezuelans to live and work in the US for 18 months. Since then, many have begun leaving voluntarily. Others worry about ICE raids in Florida’s immigrant neighbourhoods. All this, together with the question mark hanging over Venezuela’s political future, is tempering the hopes of Venezuelan expats. Every day is a roller-coaster of emotions.
They are cheered by news of the release of political prisoners and by Delcy Rodriguez’s announcement of a wide-ranging ‘amnesty law’ covering cases dating from 1999. They see encouraging signs, too, in the rekindling of US–Venezuela diplomatic relations, increased Venezuelan oil sales to the US and restored air links.
Laura Dogu, the veteran US diplomat, arrived in Caracas at the end of January to relaunch the US diplomatic mission there, and on 12 February Chris Wright, US Secretary of Energy, met acting President Rodriguez in Caracas, in one of the highest-level visits to Venezuela by a US official in 30 years. At the same time, however, continuing rhetoric from Maduro hardliners such as Cabello, railing against ‘oligarchs’ and Machado, the opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate who is a heroine to exiles, has made many question how quickly democratic reform might come.
Emotional roller coaster
Trump’s lavish praise for Rodriguez – viewed as a hardline left-wing ideologue by many – has done little to calm concerns. He has described her as a ‘terrific person’ and hailed his administration’s ‘excellent’ relations with her government. Nevertheless, Elizabeth Martinez, 55, a manicurist who has lived in Miami for 26 years, remains hopeful. ‘Trump’s relationship with Delcy [Rodriguez] is all a tactic,’ Martinez said. ‘I know Trump has been harsh on the immigration side. But I have no doubts that Trump will be successful with this [situation] in the end. This is a long process.’