Venezuelan Trump supporters feel cheated as more deportations loom

During his election campaign, Donald Trump made a concerted effort to woo the US-based Venezuelan community, condemning the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, from whom many had fled, and promising to meet their economic needs.

The election result suggested it was worth it: “I got 92% of the vote from Venezuelan voters,” Trump claimed on X.

“If you look at it, we have them all around the Doral [Miami] area. They call it Little Venezuela. They voted for me close to 100%. - We want to see what we can do to get people back in their homeland safe and free.”

Back to their homeland it is, as shortly after the inauguration, Trump revoked Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for almost 350,000 Venezuelans of the over six million in the US. Another 250,000 are soon to be stripped of their TPS status, reports NPR.

Whether they will be “safe and free” is, however, another matter altogether. According to Venezuelan activist Beatriz Olavarria, for some, “returning would be almost s u i c i d a l,” reports NBC News.

Photo: screenshot from Digalo Aqui. EVTV Miami.

Venezuelan migrants in South Florida, particularly in the Doral area, feel “beyond betrayed,” Adelys Ferro, the director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, told NPR.

“They used us. During the campaign, the elected officials from the Republican Party, they actually told us that he [Trump] was not going to touch the documented people. They said, 'No, it is with undocumented people,” she added.

A number of Venezuelans interviewed by the Majority Report said that they didn’t believe Trump would deport “good” families.  Andrea Gabriela Rangel Walther's fears her son will be deported and accuses her father for voting for Trump, The Washington Post reports.

Meanwhile, John De La Vega, a Venezuelan American immigration lawyer and Army veteran, told The Washington Post, “The Venezuelan community gave President Trump their support. This is completely different of what I thought it was going to be.”

During the election Trump promised to deport criminals; it is important to note that no one is awarded a TPS if they have a criminal record – rigorous checks are made.

However, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told NBC she believed the designation had been abused.

“Remember,” she said, “Venezuela purposely emptied out their prisons, emptied out their mental health facilities and sent them to the United States of America.”

Perhaps most shocking to Venezuelan Trump supporters is the recent visit of Trump advisor Richard Grenell to Caracas which, to Maduro’s delight, has lent legitimacy to a regime long condemned by the US as illegal.

The visit coincided with Noem arguing that Venezuelans no longer needed protection, in part because there had been “notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime.”

Such statements have enraged the Venezuelan lawyer De La Vega. “Trump knows exactly what’s going on in Venezuela, and these actions and these reports that they’re filing are completely inconsistent with the reality,” he said in the Washington Post.

“Was ‘America First’ policy then for us to send innocent people back to a regime? Is that what we do?”

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