DORAL, Fla. (AP) — Revelers chanted “freedom” and draped Venezuelan flags over their shoulders in South Florida on Saturday to mark the US military attack which overthrew the government of Nicolás Maduro – a stunning outcome they had longed for, but left them wondering what would happen next in their troubled homeland.
- From left, Venezuelans David Nuñez, Lisbeth Garcia and Victor Gimenez gather outside El Arepazo restaurant with a banner of opposition leader and Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado amid celebrations following news of the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Doral, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vanessa Alvarez)
Alejandra Arrieta, 55, and her dog Bella pose for a photo outside El Arepazo restaurant to celebrate the news of the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Doral, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vanessa Alvarez)
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From left, Venezuelans David Nuñez, Lisbeth Garcia and Victor Gimenez gather outside El Arepazo restaurant with a banner of opposition leader and Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado amid celebrations following news of the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Doral, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vanessa Alvarez)
People gathered for a rally in Doral, Florida — the Miami suburb where President Donald Trump has a golf resort and where about half the population is of Venezuelan descent — as news spread that Venezuela’s president had been captured and flown out of the country.
Outside the El Arepazo restaurant, a center of Doral’s Venezuelan culture, a man held a piece of cardboard with “Libertad” scrawled on it in black marker. It was a sentiment expressed by other indigenous Venezuelans hoping for a new beginning for their homeland as they chanted “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” chanted.
“We’re just like everyone else — it’s a combination of feelings, of course,” said Alejandra Arrieta, who came to the U.S. in 1997. “There is fear. There is excitement. We have been waiting for this for so many years. Something had to be done in Venezuela. We all need freedom.”
Trump urged the US government on Saturday to do so govern the country at least temporarily and was already doing so. The action marked the culmination of an escalating pressure campaign by the Trump administration on the oil-rich South American country and of weeks of planning to identify Maduro’s behavioral habits.
About 8 million people have fled Venezuela since 2014, first settling in neighboring countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. After the COVID-19 pandemic, they increasingly turned their sights to the United States, walking through the jungles of Colombia and Panama or flying to the US on humanitarian grounds 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 set up small businesses. In recent years, more lower-income Venezuelans have entered 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 have some form of temporary status.
Niurka Meléndez, who fled her native Venezuela in 2015, said Saturday she is hopeful Maduro’s ouster will improve life in her home country. Meléndez immigrated to New York City, where she co-founded Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, a group that strives to improve the lives of immigrants. She became a steadfast advocate for change in her home country, where she said her fellow countrymen were “facing a humanitarian crisis.”
She hopes that these hardships will end as a result of the American intervention.“For us, this is just the beginning of the justice we need,” Meléndez said in a telephone interview.
Her home country had 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 opportunity, not a guarantee, but an opportunity for 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.”
Schreiner reported from Shelbyville, Kentucky.
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