At Pica Pica, a Venezuelan restaurant in San Francisco where expatriates have gathered in recent days to make sense of the U.S. military attack on Saturday that removed Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, an employee named Alejandro was taking orders for arepas at the counter and thinking about the news.
He said everyone he knows is a jumble of emotions.
“We feel joy but also bewilderment. And we’re worried for our families,” he said. “It’s a really confusing moment.”
Venezuelans in the Bay Area have been experiencing a wide range of feelings; some rejoiced, others felt outrage, and all had a lot of questions about the future. Worldwide, nearly 8 million displaced Venezuelans live in exile, after two decades of economic crisis and political repression under Maduro and his predecessor, the late President Hugo Chávez.
Alejandro, who didn’t want his last name used because he fears jeopardizing his effort to solidify his temporary immigration status, said he was forced to give up his university studies and leave Venezuela two years ago because of the lack of political space and an economic situation so dire that he sometimes had to choose between eating and paying the bus fare to campus.
Across San Francisco, Henry, a university maintenance worker, said he was happy that the United States captured Maduro.
“This guy is paying now for what was done to so many people,” he said. “They’ve done a lot of damage to the country. It’s an illegitimate government.”
Henry said he was imprisoned and tortured by a notorious Venezuelan military unit after joining in a strike for better wages. After a judge exonerated and released him, he said, he fled to the U.S. two years ago and sought asylum.
KQED is not using Henry’s full name because his asylum application is pending, and he could be in danger if deported to Venezuela.
The number of Venezuelans reaching the U.S. has grown rapidly in recent years. While the vast majority of displaced Venezuelans are elsewhere in Latin America, roughly 10% live in the U.S., often after traveling dangerous overland routes, as Henry did.
The Biden administration offered them certain humanitarian protections, which the Trump administration has since withdrawn, leaving hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans vulnerable to deportation. Several thousand are estimated to live in the Bay Area; Florida, on the other hand, is home to nearly half of the Venezuelans in the U.S.
Carolina Morales, a program officer at a foundation in San Francisco who works to end domestic violence, is not a recent arrival. She’s lived in California for more than two decades, since moving here after high school.
Morales, 41, is now a U.S. citizen, and she said her first response to the news of the attack on her native country was horror.
“I am horrified and scared and embarrassed, to be honest,” she said. “I’m embarrassed by our government in the United States, and horrified that we, as a nation, are paying for missiles and bombs to be dropped in another country.”
The fear she feels is for her family members and friends in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, she said.
“My parents and aunts and uncles and cousins are on standby. They’re wondering what’s going to come next,” she said. “People are concerned. People are confused — as we are here, as well.”
In particular, she said, she worries that if the U.S. toughens its blockade, as Trump has promised, essentials that are hard to come by now may get pushed entirely out of reach.
“Everyday people in Venezuela need food, need medication,” she said. “My father has cancer. He actually has to start radiation…. What if the consequence of this is actually going to be more suffering?”
Maduro’s ouster comes after years in which he withstood coup attempts and international sanctions, and refused to step down in spite of credible evidence that he lost the 2025 presidential election. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, are now in U.S. custody in New York and face criminal charges of drug trafficking.
Many Venezuelans had given up hope that things could change, said Alejandro, the restaurant worker, so even though the Maduro regime remains intact, the president’s capture feels like a first step toward restoring democracy.
“It might look to foreign eyes like an aggressive invasion, but we know this is what had to happen for this man to leave,” he said. “The United States is not known as Cinderella’s fairy godmother, granting wishes for peace and happiness. Clearly, the U.S. is operating out of self-interest. But if there’s a price we have to pay for Venezuela to change, then we have to pay it.”
Guillermo Useche, a social studies teacher in Emeryville, said he, too, has been overwhelmed by conflicting feelings, as he’s followed the news on television and in numerous conversations with friends and family.
“I went from surprise and anxiety when I saw everything unfolding … and then I was scared,” he said. “Then when Maduro got captured, I definitely felt joy, and somehow relief, a feeling of justice being served.”
Useche, 47, said he had to leave Venezuela 13 years ago after he was “blacklisted” and lost his job over his opposition to the government.
But Useche said he’s also disturbed by what he sees as President Donald Trump’s disregard for international law in ordering the attack. And he’s not convinced Trump cares about a democratic future for Venezuela.
“We’re not happy with any side. But Trump’s term has an expiration date. [Maduro’s] didn’t,” he said. “And that makes getting rid of Maduro a priority. You’re just choosing the least of two really bad things.”
Meanwhile, Useche said, he’s worried for his parents, whose monthly pension check barely covers a dozen eggs and who depend on the money he sends them. And he’s unsettled by reports that the Venezuelan government has unleashed a new crackdown on dissent, arresting journalists and stopping citizens to check their cell phones for messages critical of the ruling party.
Morales, the foundation officer, said her knowledge of past U.S. interventions in Latin America and elsewhere — combined with Trump’s aggressive deployment of troops in U.S. cities — leaves her unnerved about the future.
“I’m honestly very terrified because I am aware of the history of the United States in other countries and I can see what our federal administration is currently doing within our own borders in the U.S.,” she said. “If there have been very few limits here, I can’t imagine what horrors our peoples in Venezuela might be facing in the coming months or even years.”
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