'I waited for this moment for so long.' Many U.S. Venezuelans praise Maduro capture
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WASHINGTON — Maria Eugenia Torres Ramirez was having dinner with her family in Los Angeles on Friday night when the flood of messages began.Word had begun to circulate that the U.S.
was invading Venezuela and would seize its president, Nicolás Maduro.Torres Ramirez, 38, fled her native country in 2021, settled in L.A.
and has a pending application for asylum.Her family is scattered throughout the world — Colombia, Chile and France.
Since her parents died, none of her loved ones remain in Venezuela.Still, news that the autocrat who separated them had been captured delivered a sense of long-awaited elation and united the siblings and cousins across continents for a rare four-hour phone call as the night unfolded.
“I waited for this moment for so long from within Venezuela, and now that I’m out, it’s like watching a movie,” said Torres Ramirez, a former political activist who opposed Maduro.“It’s like a jolt of relief.” Many Venezuelans across the U.S.
celebrated the military action that resulted in Maduro’s arrest.Economic collapse and political repression led roughly 8 million Venezuelans to emigrate since 2014, making it one of the world’s largest displacement crises.
Politics Trump offered few details about how the U.S.plans to run Venezuela, saying only that he intends to designate ‘a group’ from his administration to oversee the eventual transition of power.About 770,000 live in the U.S.
as of 2023, concentrated mainly in the regions of Miami, Orlando, Houston and New York.Just over 9,500 live in L.A., according to a 2024 U.S.
Census estimate.In the South Florida city of Doral, home to the largest Venezuelan American community, residents poured into the streets Saturday morning, carrying the Venezuelan flag, singing together and praising the military action as an act of freedom.
In Los Angeles, a different picture emerged as groups opposed...