Venezuelans from Bay Area cheer Maduro's capture, while some worry about possible deportation

When Oakland resident Elaine Agrizone first heard that U.S. authorities had taken custody of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, she stayed up most of the night trying to confirm that the man she blames for years of repression in her home country had truly been removed from power.

“I got goosebumps and the tears started to flow,” Agrizone said in Spanish.

Maduro made his first appearance in a New York courtroom Monday, pleading not guilty to narco-terrorism charges brought by the Trump administration after U.S. officials said he and his wife were taken into custody at their home in Venezuela during what President Donald Trump described as an overnight operation. Trump told reporters Saturday that his administration would “run” Venezuela’s government during what he called a transition period, though he offered few details about how that would unfold.

The developments triggered Bay Area protests over the weekend by anti-war groups opposing Trump’s actions. But many Venezuelans living in the region said they felt a sense of long-awaited relief that Maduro was in New York facing federal charges — even as they worried that figures loyal to him could remain in power.

“We know it has been a terrible government for our country, but I felt for those innocent people who died — because truly so many innocent people have died over the years,” Agrizone said.

In her view, Maduro “was only a puppet.”

“I don’t think we will be free while that government is still in power,” Agrizone said. “It is still corrupt.”

Nearly 8 million Venezuelans fled the country during the governments of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, according to international estimates. About 1 million came to the U.S., including nearly 30,000 to California. Many received temporary protected status, or TPS, allowing them to live and work in the country legally.

Several Bay Area Venezuelans with temporary status contacted by this news organization declined to identify themselves, citing fear of reprisals from remnants of Venezuela’s government, which has a history of targeting political opponents. Others said they were also worried about their legal status in the United States after the Trump administration moved to revoke protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans — a decision now being challenged in court. The ongoing legal battle has left many immigrants in limbo.

Even so, many said they were relieved that Maduro was finally being held to account.

Nardy Brasil, 42, left Venezuela 24 years ago, when Chávez was in power, and watched from afar as her homeland descended into political violence and economic collapse. Now a U.S. citizen, she said the latest developments brought both gratitude and anxiety.

She worries for family and friends who remain in the United States on temporary status — and whether the Trump administration could take steps to deport them, regardless of whether they feel safe returning to Venezuela.

As the news broke last weekend, Brasil said she spent several agonizing hours unable to reach her father.

“No one wants them to bomb your country,” Brasil said. At the same time, however, “we said, ‘thank God, it’s finally happening.'”

She is grateful to the Trump administration for its bold move, she said, but “that doesn’t mean that Venezuela is free. The people of Venezuela are still in fear about what is going to happen to the country. It’s like watching a movie and not knowing what the ending will be.”

Celestino De Caires, 65, a U.S. citizen who lives in Oakland, first came to the United States from Venezuela 45 years ago to study engineering at UC Berkeley before later earning a degree in Latin American studies at San Francisco State University. He said he experienced repression under both the Chávez and Maduro governments.

In the early 2000s, De Caires helped organize opposition to Chávez in San Francisco. Afterward, he said Venezuelan authorities accused him of being a CIA agent. Years later, while visiting his home in Venezuela, he said government agents came looking for him, forcing him to flee across rooftops to escape with his passport.

“We’re happy, but with a bad taste in our mouths, because they are still there in power,” said De Caires in Spanish, highlighting the corruption and repression that marred the Maduro government. “But Donald Trump has shown his teeth and his war power.”

De Caires said he believes Trump’s threats could force Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who worked under Maduro in his regime, to make a transition government. While he said Venezuelans generally oppose U.S. intervention, he believes the level of corruption and suffering under Maduro made outside action unavoidable in this case.

“It’s not that we’re pro-Trump, it’s that we’re anti-Chavismo,” Caires concluded, referring to the movement that encompassed the Chavez and Maduro governments.

Aida Crosby of San Jose, a schoolteacher who fled Venezuela in 1988 and later settled in the Bay Area after meeting her husband at Brigham Young University, has protested the Chávez and Maduro governments for years. In 2011, she joined demonstrators who held hands across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Crosby said she is “thrilled” that Maduro is now facing justice in the United States. Her father, an American who married a Venezuelan woman and worked in the oil industry, was killed while dining in a restaurant in Venezuela in 1983. No one was ever arrested, but Crosby said her family believes he was targeted by pro-communist sympathizers who wanted Americans out of the country.

“Maduro is the little, tiny scale of the big Anaconda that is wrapping around, not Venezuela, not the Americas, but the entire world,” Crosby said. “So we Venezuelans, we’re having a hard time understanding why it is that Trump has allowed (Vice President) Delcy Rodriguez to control the other part of the snake.”

Crosby described Trump as a “godsend” and said she is hopeful since Secretary of State Marco Rubio from Florida understands the geopolitics of Latin America and speaks Spanish, the future there will be bright.

“We are very, very hopeful,” Crosby said.

She said she dreams of returning to Venezuela one day to help rebuild it — to walk along the Caribbean coast, to celebrate and dance again. For now, that life feels distant.

“No one has the capacity to have a party anymore,” Crosby said. “There is nothing.”