As news of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro's capture by U.S. forces spreads, the Venezuelan community in cities across the U.S. is reacting with a mixture of joy, caution, and skepticism. In Chicago, where an estimated 50,000 Venezuelans have settled since 2022, people's emotions are strongly mixed. Some residents express a cautious optimism about their home country's future, while others remain deeply concerned.
At Rica Arepa, a Venezuelan restaurant in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, there were "tears of joy" as patrons digested the recent developments, WGN-TV reports. However, the reaction was not uniformly positive. Venezuelans in Chicago are closely following the situation, as evidenced by Roger Parra Millasmil's conflicted feelings. "We are not sure if we should be crying at this moment, or we should be celebrating," he told WGN-TV.
Down in South Florida, Venezuelans flooded the streets of Doral, a city known for its significant Venezuelan population. Celebrations took place outside El Arepazo, where demonstrators expressed feelings of freedom they hadn't felt in a long time. "It means that they waited so many years for a chance at freedom and it's finally here," one man told CBS News Miami.
The reaction has political implications as well. In the wake of Maduro's capture, Illinois state lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, criticized President Trump's actions, with Duckworth calling the move "reckless and unconstitutional" in a statement obtained by WGN-TV. Meanwhile, residents in Doral feel less concerned with U.S. politics and more with what happens next for Venezuela, focusing on the emotional weight of the moment rather than the legal and political intricacies.
As both Chicago and Doral see protests and celebrations, the common theme among the Venezuelan diaspora is a longing for a democratically elected government at home. The Illinois Venezuelan Alliance echoed this sentiment, urging the return to Venezuela of legitimately elected leaders to facilitate a democratic transition. Meanwhile, President Trump has announced that the U.S. government will temporarily run Venezuela, a situation that inevitably stirs concerns about sovereignty among many Venezuelan Americans.
