venezuelans

When Maduro was taken and arrested on January 3rd, many Venezuelans brought out the good stuff. The old bottle of rum or whiskey they’d been saving for a special occasion, believing the incursion would inevitably lead to the return of liberty in Venezuela. Nine months later, the “transition” has not been what most Venezuelans wanted. Hundreds of political prisoners were released, but that is not enough. A few laws are being reformed, but not the institutions that carry them out. Delcy remains in power despite no lawful statute allowing it nor any sort of popular mandate for her to be the head of the Venezuelan State. 

Many who brought out the good whiskey have soured on the transition, or at the very least lost their shiny optimism. But the mistake was not just to believe in a future that now seems a bit naive, but to yearn for the return of a past which was the precursor to our current tragic state.

The quest for a more liberal society

Yes, we were better off before the 2000s, but we’ve never had a truly free society without clientelism or corruption. Chavismo may have perfected the art of corruption in Venezuela, but they certainly did not invent it. Venezuela, since its inception, has not been able to ameliorate the very Latin American issue of inequalities of power. We tend to forget about the problem during oil bonanzas. Everyone is doing better, right? Why worry? Then the oil price inevitably falls, the party stops, the lights turn on and we see the naked truth that we are in a horrible state of disrepair.

Many say that the Venezuelan problem is economic (lack of diversification or investment in non-oil industries), political (once high polarization and weak rule of law), or even cultural (a tendency towards el guiso). But within these lies a deeper philosophical issue: for a society that claims to love liberty and our libertadores as much as we do, we don’t actually understand what it takes to create a liberal society. 

This is hardly a Venezuela-specific issue, but we are a unique case in that so much of our self-perception is based on the idea of a people who achieved freedom from the yoke of Spanish tyranny, only to then continue to liberate other countries in South America, making Simón Bolívar the most famous person in the history of the continent.

What room is there to become “more liberal” once all citizens are recognized by the law and there is universal suffrage? 

To understand what it means to be a liberal society, perhaps it would be best to understand what it means to be a more liberal society. When the classical liberal revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries took place, it was the divine right of kings that fell. The power was taken from an individual and shared amongst parliaments, which were at the time controlled almost exclusively by rich landowners (including our own first few republics). Still, this was unquestionably a redistribution of power from the individual to the few. It took a long time, but eventually this distribution of power from the one to the few became a distribution of power from the few to the many. Nowadays, democratic societies are expected to allow every single citizen to vote, but this is a reality that is younger than the oldest person alive today. When English supercentenarian Ethel Caterham in the UK was born in 1909, her mother would not have been allowed to vote.

Liberal societies today hardly even question the idea that all people should be equal in respect to the law and that we ought to have a voice in the decisions of our country through voting. So what room is there to become “more liberal” once all citizens are recognized by the law and there is universal suffrage? 

It’s true that the distribution of power in liberal countries these days is much improved when compared to 100 years ago, but is it better than 50 years ago? The laws may say that all people are equal, but systems don’t seem to provide that result. Even in societies where they have nominally distributed power amongst all citizens, the power has not been really distributed amongst them nearly as well. Throughout the current Trump presidency, there have been a string of pardons for white-collar criminals who have paid patronage to Trump and his family, including the former president of Honduras convicted of drug trafficking, or a Venezuelan oligarch indicted for allegedly bribing a Puerto Rico governor.

This is a clear example of a two-tiered justice system in which if you put the right money in the right pockets, you get preferential treatment.

A post-WW2 recipe?

I use these examples to show that although there is nothing ontologically wrong with wealth inequality, especially if the rich earned that money honestly, in practice inequality in resources leads to inequality in power and inevitably abuse of that power. This is the state of Venezuela now, but it was also the state of Venezuela long before Chávez caught a whiff of power and what ultimately led a majority of voters to choose a murderer and traitor over the “democracy” that was in place. 

The issue, after nearly three decades of chavismo, is that although they entered power on the basis of railing against resource and power inequalities, in the time since they’ve been in charge they’ve done nothing to ameliorate those same inequalities. The people in government have simply taken the seats of the previously corrupt politicians and become even more clientelist, leading to greater inequalities in power and resources than ever before (on top of just a generally poorer country).

The vast majority of Venezuelans can clearly see what chavismo is now, even many who used to vote for it. And though we are still not through with it, we ought to give serious consideration to what we want to replace it with. Do we want a return to bipartidismo and clientelism with high inequality? Just hoping that the price of oil rises so we can keep our population happy whilst oligarchs accrue more and more power? Or do we actually want to achieve the liberty we say we value so much?

We can imitate post-WWII States who decreased inequalities by taxing the incomes of extremely wealthy people at extremely high rates whilst maintaining a belief in free markets, property and the rule of law.

When we get rid of chavismo, we will have an even greater challenge ahead. We’ll have the challenge of rebuilding a country destroyed by decades of mismanagement, a country filled with people who have gotten their wealth by enchufándose into a corrupt system that has oppressed the voice of its people. And we’ll have to decide how we want to go about bringing back liberty. I suggest we act like the previous liberal revolutions we venerate, and distribute more power from the few to the many.

So what is the solution to power inequalities and resource inequalities?

Thankfully, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. We can copy the policies of post-WWII countries (US, Japan, France, UK, Germany, etc) who decreased inequalities in their countries by taxing the incomes of extremely wealthy people at extremely high rates whilst maintaining a belief in free markets, property and the rule of law. This has the added benefit of diversifying government incomes away from just oil revenue or sales taxes, which are regressive and hurt consumers and small businesses (I could go on and on about the economic benefits, but I’ll stick to the institutional ones here). I specify the post-WWII liberal societies here and not the communist ones, because although communist countries seek to ameliorate resource inequalities they end up increasing power inequalities which lead to just as much abuse, if not even more than hyper-capitalistic oligarchic societies.

But before we can consider which policies we ought to copy from which societies, we must adopt the attitudes and political beliefs which made those policies implementable in the first place.

The world, not just Venezuela, is at a crossroads between greater authoritarianism or greater liberalism. If we are leaders of liberalism in our continent, as we have historically perceived ourselves to be, then we ought to understand the nature of liberalism and how we ought to achieve it. If we do not have a vision of how to recreate our institutions and our general idea of what a liberal society even is, then we will surely return to the sad state we are in right now, even after we get rid of the kleptocrats sitting in Miraflores.

The solution is simple, but it’s not easy. Entrenched interests are just that; entrenched. But if the people of the country yearn for liberty and we manage to understand what it takes to attain it, then it can be done through hard work and dedication, as ultimately all worthwhile goals are achieved.

Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado has been living in exile, with plans to return to Venezuela spoiled multiple times.

Hundreds of supporters of Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado have taken to the streets to demand her safe return and presidential elections that could lead to a democratic transition in the country.

In Caracas, hundreds of activists in sky blue shirts – the colour of Machado’s Vente Venezuela party – rode motorcycles through the capital’s main avenues on Sunday, honking their horns and waving Venezuelan flags. Similar demonstrations were held in state capitals, including Valencia, Maracaibo and Merida.

“This is not a matter of parties or politics,” said Flavio Valentini, a Vente Venezuela activist in Caracas who grabbed a megaphone and addressed the crowd. “This is a movement for the people and by the people.”

Machado has been living in exile for the past nine months and has had plans to return to Venezuela spoiled multiple times. Opposition activists have accused Venezuela’s government of blocking her return, a claim the authorities deny. Machado’s party said that on Monday night, the opposition leader made three unsuccessful attempts to return.

“We hope this transition process leads us to presidential elections and consolidates a free, democratic country that will be the main ally of the United States,” said Anthony Romero, a leader for Vente Venezuela, in the nation’s capital.

The government has been widely accused of stealing elections, jailing dissidents and stifling freedom of speech. But late last week, Venezuela released more than three dozen political prisoners following a second round of talks backed by the US between the interim government and the opposition.

Machado, one of Venezuela’s most popular political leaders, was barred from running in Venezuela’s last presidential election by courts under the control of former President Nicolas Maduro. But her stand-in candidate is widely believed to have won the election with almost two-thirds of the vote.

Maduro claimed victory nevertheless and unleashed a violent crackdown against dissidents who protested the official results, forcing Machado and dozens of opposition leaders to go into hiding. Machado smuggled herself out of Venezuela last year after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to restore democracy in the country.

US special forces abducted Maduro from his Caracas home in January, but Machado has been unable to return to Venezuela since then.

The government is now led by Delcy Rodriguez, a Maduro ally who has opened Venezuela’s oil industry to foreign investment and is working closely with the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Rodriguez told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Wednesday that Venezuela would hold elections as part of a transition to “full democracy”, but did not give a date for the vote.

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.