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MIDVALE, Utah — Snow-covered mountains ringing a valley of wide, free-flowing roads remind Venezuelan transplants that the growing suburbs south of Salt Lake City offer what Miami can’t.

One million Venezuelans were released into the United States after crossing the Mexican border during a record immigration surge, and many shunned Miami and other longtime immigrant footholds for smaller places with less established communities — a pattern found in an exclusive Associated Press analysis of federal data from fall 2018 to summer 2025.

These cities and towns promised better jobs, cheaper homes, less traffic and higher quality of life, outweighing Florida’s allure of tropical weather and ease of getting by on Spanish alone.

Enrique Vera, 32, crossed the border in Yuma, Arizona, in 2021 and went to Miami to settle with his mother, who’d been there six years. But he found Florida untenable, he told AP — “the work, the conditions, the low pay.”

After less than two weeks there, Vera and his mother accepted a cousin’s invitation to Utah. In the southern suburbs, with massive new housing tracts and pristine shopping centers, Vera found factory work but soon quit to turn a hobby baking for co-workers into his own business. Today he employs 15 people — many, like him, asylum seekers — at a warehouse and two bakeries.

Utah — known as a relatively immigrant-friendly state despite deep Republican roots and support for President Donald Trump — became a top destination for Venezuelans crossing the border, along with parts of the Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston metro areas, AP’s data show. Venezuelans also went to smaller cities including Madison, Wisconsin; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Savannah, Georgia.

It’s a pattern playing out across the U.S.: Some Cubans eschewed Florida and went to Louisville, Kentucky, and Odessa, Texas; Colombians chose the Boston and Denver areas; and Paterson, New Jersey, was the top pick among Peruvians.

These communities have both benefited from the influx of people and struggled to integrate their new arrivals.

Venezuelans stand out for their sheer numbers. About 8 million people, or one-fourth of the country’s population, have fled since 2014, many to the United States. About 30,000 of the 1 million released into the U.S. in AP’s data said they were going directly to Utah.

For Venezuelans in Utah, Trump’s deportation drive has instilled widespread fear

Despite the growing population here, there are few Venezuelan flags, bumper stickers or displays of patriotism on the bustling commercial strips of Midvale, an older suburb of about 40,000 people at the interchange of two highways. Signs are generally in English. The Venezuelan population has mixed in with the largely white population as new houses, malls, office parks and warehouses have gobbled up barren hillsides to meet demand for cheaper land.

President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown instilled fear and made Venezuelans less visible since 2023, when arrivals peaked in Utah and in the United States as a whole. Everyone here seems to know someone who returned to Venezuela voluntarily because they feared being detained and deported or because they lost their work authorization.

In May 2025, Alberto Salcedo opened the parking lot of his Centro de Apoyo Familiar Church to Venezuelan food trucks. The asylum-seeking evangelical pastor dreamed of creating a vibrant gathering spot for Venezuelan immigrants. Nearly 20 vendors and 5,000 visitors came each week, he said, with trucks serving empanadas, arepas, even burgers and sushi. But that dropped down to maybe five vendors and a few hundred people. The fear of deportation is real, he said.

Restaurant owner Fidel Arrieta said it’s affected his business, too. He opened Arempa’s, his first restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City in 2019, drawing non-Latino customers and Venezuelan immigrants alike. Arempa’s — where the walls are filled with photos of Venezuelan waterfalls, an image of Mona Lisa eating an arepa and Miss Venezuela portraits — grew to five restaurants. But three closed in the last year as business slowed.

Arrieta’s wife — co-owner Sandy Arrieta — wanted to stay open. But he believes nothing will turn around while Trump’s in office.

“Until the government changes, the problems will not end,” said Fidel, 65, who immigrated in 1994.

For proof of the growing Venezuelan population, look no further than Utah’s churches

In 2001, Gregorio Rausseo immigrated to Utah, knowing no one. Fast-forward more than two decades, to 2023: Rausseo had just started as pastor at Saint Therese of the Child Jesus Church and was ready for the annual celebration of the patron saint of Zulia, an oil-rich Venezuelan state that includes Maracaibo, the country’s second-largest city. He was shocked to see more than 1,000 parishioners snake into the lobby and parking lot.

“I asked the deacon, ‘All of them are Venezuelan?’ He said … ‘They are all Maracuchos,’” a term for someone from Maracaibo.

Today, Rausseo estimates about 40% of his church’s more than 700 families are Venezuelan immigrants.

Carlos Trujillo, a 42-year-old lawyer who handles immigration cases, puts Venezuelan immigrants in three categories: those who came for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; those who came to join family or friends; and those who came knowing no one. He has repeatedly heard variations of, “This is a place where I can bring my family and have a start.”

Trujillo — who immigrated in 2001, as an 18-year-old whose parents decided he would do better living with family closer to the Mormon church headquarters — said his firm has about 1,700 immigration cases, with staff fielding calls in a large room resembling a call center.

Many of the Venezuelans here came after COVID hit, flying to the Mexican border before January 2022, when Mexico tightened travel restrictions for Venezuelans. That prompted hundreds of thousands to walk through the Darien Gap, a jungle in Panama and Colombia, on a grueling journey through at least eight countries.

Ashly Estupinan, 18, walked the jungle with her grandmother. In Mexico, they used the appointment app CBP One to enter the U.S. in San Diego. Trump ended CBP One on his first day in office, two years after his predecessor, Joe Biden, started it and let more than 900,000 people come legally with two-year permits.

Estupinan, who graduated high school this spring, and her grandmother chose Utah because her uncle was there. “It’s very tranquil, very pretty, the people are very friendly,” she said.

Word of mouth and family advice brought many to Utah

Juan Gonzalez, 41, a cook at Arempa’s, walked the jungle for four days with his brother — passing corpses, he said — before eventually crossing the U.S. border in Texas. He went to Utah on the advice of a distant cousin.

“He had gone to other states, and Utah struck him as the best one,” Gonzalez said, noting he’s drawn to the state’s “strong economy.”

Many Venezuelan immigrants here work in food service — at restaurants or selling meals from their homes. Some proudly noted that a local Walmart now stocks special flour for arepas.

Others cycle through low-wage jobs: construction, nail salons, warehouse and factory work.

Gonzalo Rodriguez, 39, worked as a laborer, carpenter and office manager before rising to general manager of Fillerup Employment Services, a construction company. He said it had about 25 Venezuelans in its workforce of about 300 when he arrived in 2020. By 2022, that grew to 165.

At one point, Rodriguez said, Venezuelans camped in tents on the sidewalk at the company’s office park in suburban Sandy, waiting for work and accepting food while migrant shelters were full.

Julio Gonzalez, 33, climbed company ranks from laborer to human resources manager after crossing the border in 2021 with his wife and son, then 9, in Del Rio, Texas. A friend in Utah told him it was a good place to live. Many here agree, saying they’ve felt no pervasive racism in Utah.

It was a welcome change for Gonzalez, who said he lived in Panama for six years under anti-Venezuelan xenophobia that prompted his move to the United States.

Hector Escalona, 42, also started in construction at Fillerup, then opened a barber shop in 2022. He now has 27 barber chairs at three shops, and many employees are Venezuelan. He said he’s expanding his business even with uncertainty about his asylum case.

Others have had less financial success.

Adaya Amaya, 47, ran a catering business from her home and now operates a food truck but barely gets by. She crossed the border in 2021 with her daughter, now 9, and father, now 74. They relied at times on a food bank. She knows other Venezuelans who’ve slept in their cars.

Her father gave up his asylum claim in June to return to Maracaibo because he didn’t want to burden her.

Some wonder: Is goodwill toward immigrants cooling in Utah?

In the 2024 election, Trump — and his immigration enforcement campaign messages — won Utah by 22 points. The same year, Carlos Moreno, who won asylum after fleeing Venezuela in 2009, was elected to the Salt Lake County Council.

The state’s immigrant-friendly reputation is tied to the Utah Compact, a 2010 document signed by hundreds of local governments, businesses and civic leaders that endorses “common-sense immigration reforms that will strengthen our economy, as well as attract talent and business to our state.”

But Trujillo, the immigration attorney, said goodwill cooled during the Biden-era immigration surge and some elected leaders who were allies became more guarded in public comments.

Gov. Spencer Cox called the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang “a growing threat in Utah” in 2024, but few major crimes in the state have been linked to the group.

Venezuelan immigrants repeatedly told AP that a small minority of their own are their worst enemies — not just those who commit crimes but those who drink in public, play loud music and repair cars in the street. They say that while some of that behavior may be accepted in Venezuela, they must adopt local norms.

“It makes me angry,” said Joiren Rangel, who arrived in 2018 and worked at an Amazon warehouse before opening two Venezuelan restaurants, one of which closed last year. “We saw that we were in a different country and had to abide by the rules. In Venezuela, I would drive with my daughter seated on my lap. I would never do that here.”

Many here are still waiting on their asylum cases

Some asylum seekers were told to wait 10 years for an initial appointment in 2023, but the government has moved aggressively to winnow the backlog. Still, about 500,000 Venezuelans have pending cases in immigration court, more than any other nationality.

Loreana Pachano, who spent much of her childhood in Miami, has been waiting 10 years for an asylum interview. She was increasingly impatient but now wonders whether she might do better if her case remains open until after Trump leaves office.

She and her husband settled in Florida but tired of long commutes and anti-Venezuelan sentiment. They moved to Utah after a friend told her that construction wages were significantly higher. “If we had to start from scratch, how about we start from scratch somewhere else?” she remembers thinking.

Now a real estate agent, she sells houses to asylum seekers who crossed the border and has seen the impact of Trump’s policies — for example, a bank closing on a house that a Venezuelan client gave up because she lost work authorization when Trump ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 600,000 Venezuelans.

“It feels like we’re building on quicksand. We’re trying to build a future here for ourselves, for our kids,” said Pachano, who flips homes and owns trucking and construction businesses with her husband while raising their 3- and 7-year-old daughters.

“Are we going to be here by the time we reach retirement age? We don’t know. You don’t know when the rug is going to be pulled right under your feet.”

Spagat writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Aaron Kessler contributed to this report.

UCLA is proceeding as though it landed a massive gift this week, with 2025 Sun Belt Player of the Year Trent Hendrick joining the Bruins for practices Monday and Tuesday.

Hendrick is among 16 players who sought a Louisiana temporary restraining order allowing them to return to college after entering the NFL draft pool, arguing they would not have left had they know NCAA rules would change granting them an extra year of eligibility.

The temporary restraining order was granted last week, but the Big Ten voted on Tuesday to pass a new rule that prohibited football players who have signed a professional contract, were on a professional roster at any point or declared for the NFL draft as an underclassman without withdrawing, from maintaining eligibility for athletic competition.

Hendrick, however, did not sign a contract, never earned a spot on a roster and didn’t declare for the draft as an underclassman.

Linebacker Trent Hendrick participates in a drill during the Cleveland Browns’ rookie minicamp on May 8. Hendrick is now poised to play for UCLA.

(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)

“We support the Big Ten’s adoption of the new professional football players rule and understand the importance of having clear and consistent eligibility standards across the conference,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a statement on Tuesday. “We have been in communication with the Big Ten throughout this process, and our student-athletes are eligible under the guidelines adopted today. We are excited to turn our full attention to the upcoming season and our opener [versus] California on Sept. 5.”

It is unclear whether anyone will contest the Louisiana temporary restraining order.

For now, Hendrick is quickly getting up to speed in a system he learned while competing under head coach Bob Chesney and defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler last season at James Madison.

Chesney was excited on Monday to welcome Hendrick to Westwood. Hitschler told reporters Tuesday he, too, was pleased to see Hendrick on the UCLA roster.

James Madison’s Trent Hendrick tackles Washington State’s Maxwell Woods during a game on Nov. 22.

(Brien Aho / Getty Images)

“We had a lot of fun together last year and I think he did a great job where he was,” Hitschler said. “I’m glad he got the opportunity for himself to hopefully continue to play college football here. What a special opportunity for him and let’s make the most of it.”

Both coaches said they faced competition to land Hendrick after last week’s restraining order was granted.

“He’s a really good player,” Hitschler said. “He made a lot of plays for us last year and he loves the game. … Awesome kid, loves the game, loves the work, loves the grind, you know, and he’s talented.”

Can a player who joined a roster less than two weeks before the season opener be ready to play immediately? Hitschler thinks so.

“Trent’s a kid that stays ready,” Hitschler said. “He was begging for an opportunity to get a tryout in the league. Just another opportunity to maybe get it. So he was working out, he was in great shape. He’s a kid that lives, eats and sleeps football and God blessed him with an opportunity here, let’s see what he can make of it.”

The Big Ten is holding schools accountable for compliance with its rule and told the Associated Press restrictions in other sports such as basketball could follow.

A head football coach who plays a former pro will be suspended 50% of the season and his school will be fined, the Big Ten confirmed to the AP on Tuesday.

The topic is a hot one around college athletics. Wake Forest athletic director John Currie, chairman of the Atlantic Coast Conference athletic directors group for the upcoming season, said his colleagues planned to discuss the issue Wednesday.

“I don’t think anybody in our league likes the idea of taking away opportunities from existing college students and graduating high school players, which is exactly what is happening when a school signs a player out of an NFL camp to their team,” Currie wrote in a text message to the AP.

Duke coach Manny Diaz said the Power Four conferences need to present a unified front. The Big 12 and Southeastern Conference have not announced steps, though the SEC ripped the potential for pros back in college in a statement late Monday.

“I think you’ll see more leagues start to govern themselves since we’re having such a hard time finding it at a national level,” Diaz said. “I think everyone understands it’s absolutely absurd. We can enjoy the fact that the players can benefit financially from playing in college now. At the same time, recognize the ultimate truth that we’re not a professional sports franchise. We are a collegiate, scholastic school activity, and we’ve got to rein that in.”

Agent Drew Rosenhaus told the AP on Monday that former Mississippi tight end Dae’Quan Wright had been waived by the Cleveland Browns and, if he clears waivers, will join Lane Kiffin’s roster at Louisiana State. Wright played two seasons for Kiffin at Ole Miss.

Wright was among a group of players who sued in a Louisiana court, saying the new NCAA rule granting five years of eligibility to most athletes should apply to him and others who were not “grandfathered” into the rule, which did not include the high school Class of 2022.

“Over 100 athletes in multiple sports were cleared and said you could go play. That’s a court order,” Kiffin said Tuesday on “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN. “If you think back on all the different court orders of great players that were granted — whether that’s Diego Pavia or, now, Trinidad [Chambliss] that were allowed to play a sixth year, we followed all court orders. I think you get into a really interesting situation as a conference if you’re now saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to follow this court order.’ These kids that a court says can go anywhere, we’re going to say, ‘No you can’t.’”

The situation has drawn sharp criticism among coaches in college and the NFL. Rams coach Sean McVay said reversing the college football-to-NFL pipeline was mind-boggling.

“I don’t know enough about it, other than the fact guys that can be in NFL camps, if it doesn’t go down for them, they can go back to college,” McVay said. “I mean, I feel like I took a freaking gummy. I don’t even understand it. It’s true. I mean, looking at this stuff, I’m like, surely that’s not real. But I just try to stay in my lane. But I would say it’s very unique and it’s very different.”

Correspondent Jordan Puente and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

The wife of an active-duty U.S. soldier was deported Monday to her native Honduras, according to her family and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty U.S. military service member to be deported under President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The Associated Press has found more than 50 cases in which immediate family members of U.S. troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the Trump administration rolled back protections for military families. In some instances, DHS has released military spouses following media attention and advocacy by congressional leaders.

Villafranca-Trejo’s husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, said he has been struggling to manage his military duties since she was detained July 11 outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss, Texas, where he is stationed. Since then, he’s had to care for their 6-year-old daughter without his wife’s help. Instead of training in the mornings, he takes his daughter to first grade, and he said he has already had to postpone a planned assignment at another base.

“I don’t know if I will be able to continue with this,” Turcios Juarez told AP of his Army career. “I have to make a plan to make sure I can still fulfill my military responsibilities — but also take care of my family.”

DHS confirmed Villafranca-Trejo’s deportation, saying she had “received due process.”

Villafranca-Trejo, who has no known criminal record and entered the U.S. in 2016 at age 18, was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2017 after failing to appear at a hearing, according to DHS. Villafranca-Trejo’s husband said she had not received a notice for the hearing she missed and did not realize she had been ordered deported until they went to apply for her green card after marrying in 2022.

Originally from Honduras, Turcios Juarez became a U.S. citizen in 2024 after enlisting two years earlier.

Villafranca-Trejo’s motion to reopen her case was denied last May and an appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals remained pending, according to her attorney. She had also been waiting for about a year for a decision on her application for military parole-in-place, a program that allows the immediate family of U.S. troops to remain in the country to apply for a green card.

“We were following the rules — we did everything we could on our side to fix this problem,” Turcios Juarez told the AP.

Prior to Trump’s second administration, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement would typically allow immediate family members of U.S. troops to adjust their legal status even if they had been issued a final order of removal, according to Dan Gividen, who served as ICE deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump.

“If you’ve got an active-duty military member that’s married to someone now, and that’s going to give her the opportunity to get a green card, you wouldn’t detain them, much less execute the removal order,” Gividen said.

JP Caballero, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat representing El Paso, said Escobar had opened a congressional inquiry into Villafranca-Trejo’s case and visited her at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas earlier this month.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for,” Escobar told AP in a statement. “There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”

Turcios Juarez said he is unsure how he will care for his daughter without his wife. He still hasn’t figured out how to tell his daughter what has happened. But he says he still wants to keep serving his country.

“I love what I do, I want to keep doing this,” he said of the Army. “I just don’t know how I am going to keep doing this.”

Brook writes for the Associated Press.