An Associated Press analysis of federal immigration data found that roughly 30,000 Venezuelans identified Utah as their intended destination from fall 2018 through summer 2025, within a much larger wave of about 1 million Venezuelans released into the United States after crossing the Mexican border. Enrique Vera was one of them. He crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona, in 2021, and after less than two weeks trying to settle in Miami, he and his mother accepted a cousin's invitation to try Utah instead.
The AP analysis, cited by the Associated Press, found that many Venezuelan immigrants bypassed established immigrant centers for smaller cities. The pattern, also reported by seattlepi.com, was associated with the appeal of jobs, housing costs, traffic and quality of life. Utah ranked among the leading destinations for Venezuelans crossing the border, alongside metro areas around Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.
A Suburb Transformed
Midvale, an older Utah suburb of about 40,000 people, has become one of the clearest examples of that shift. Vera now employs 15 people across a warehouse and two bakeries there, building a small business empire out of what began as a desperate relocation. Hector Escalona followed a similar arc, opening a barber shop in 2022 that has since grown into three shops with 27 barber chairs total.
The growth has not been steady in every corner of the community. Fidel Arrieta opened Arempa's, his first restaurant, in downtown Salt Lake City in 2019, and the chain eventually grew to five locations. But three of those restaurants closed within the past year as business slowed, according to the same account. Arrieta said the underlying problems will not end until the government changes.
Food Trucks Rose, Then Faded
In May 2025, Alberto Salcedo opened the parking lot of his Centro de Apoyo Familiar Church to Venezuelan food trucks. The gathering initially drew nearly 20 vendors and 5,000 visitors each week, but later fell to about five vendors and a few hundred visitors, according to the report. The decline coincided with the broader chilling effect described in the AP's reporting on Trump's immigration crackdown, which has made some Venezuelans less visible since arrivals in Utah and nationwide peaked in 2023.
Faith Communities Feel the Growth
Churches have absorbed much of that growth. Gregorio Rausseo, who immigrated to Utah in 2001, was shocked to see more than 1,000 parishioners at Saint Therese of the Child Jesus Church's 2023 celebration. Today he estimates about 40% of the church's more than 700 families are Venezuelan immigrants, a striking shift for a congregation he watched grow slowly for two decades before the recent surge.
Employers noticed the same pattern in the workforce. Gonzalo Rodriguez reported that Venezuelans in his company's workforce grew from about 25 people in 2020 to 165 by 2022, mirroring growth reported elsewhere; the Venezuelan workforce at Fillerup Employment Services followed nearly identical numbers, according to seattlepi.com.
The Journey and the Legal Limbo
Getting to Utah was rarely simple. After Mexico tightened travel restrictions for Venezuelans in January 2022, many walked through the Darién Gap to continue north. Ashly Estupinan eventually entered the United States in San Diego using CBP One, a program that allowed more than 900,000 people to enter legally with two-year permits before Trump ended it on his first day back in office. Estupinan has described Utah as tranquil, pretty and friendly since settling there.
The legal path for many remains unresolved. Trump also ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 600,000 Venezuelans nationwide, and immigration attorney Carlos Trujillo says he now has about 1,700 immigration cases at his own firm. Nationally, Venezuelans have roughly 500,000 pending cases in immigration court. Loreana Pachano, who waited 10 years for an asylum interview, said Venezuelan immigrants are simply trying to build a future for themselves and their children.
Utah's Political Backdrop
The community has grown politically visible even as it navigates that uncertainty. Carlos Moreno was elected to the Salt Lake County Council in 2024, the same year Utah Governor Spencer Cox called the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang a growing threat in the state. Utah remains a heavily Republican state, and Donald Trump won it by 22 points in the 2024 election.
Utah's broader response to immigration dates back further, to the Utah Compact, signed by hundreds of local governments, businesses and civic leaders in 2010 to promote a measured approach to newcomers. That framework predates the current wave by more than a decade, but it has shaped how communities like Midvale have absorbed rapid change. Nationally, the Venezuelan immigrant population grew 318 percent between 2010 and 2023, compared with just 20 percent growth for the overall immigrant population, according to migrationpolicy.org. More than seven million Venezuelans have left their country since 2014 amid economic collapse, representing roughly one-fourth of Venezuela's population, according to borderlessmag.org.
A longer view of migration to Utah
The recent Venezuelan influx can be placed against a longer state record. According to Utah's Environmental Public Health Tracking portal, the state maintains refugee-arrival data from 1998 through 2023, including breakdowns by resettlement agency and visa type for 2015-23. That record provides a way to examine whether earlier refugee-arrival and resettlement patterns helped make Utah and Salt Lake County familiar destinations for newcomers. The data alone, however, does not establish why Venezuelans chose Midvale over established gateway cities; the accounts above point to the more immediate factors of family connections, work, housing and perceived quality of life.
Florida Still Leads, But Utah Punches Above Its Weight
Florida remains the single largest destination, home to 49% of Venezuelan immigrants during the 2019-23 period, with Texas, Georgia, New York and California rounding out the next-largest state populations, migrationpolicy.org notes. A different measure highlights the relative pull of smaller metros: Salt Lake City ranked third among U.S. metro areas for immigrant arrivals per capita between May 2023 and January 2025, behind only Miami and Fort Myers, according to cpr.org. Denver ranked fourth in that measure. Similar patterns have unfolded in Madison, Wisconsin; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Savannah, Georgia, where Venezuelan communities have taken root far from Florida's established hubs.
