With mixed feelings, Venezuelans and protesters take to Tampa streets after capture of Nicolás Maduro [PHOTOS]

The Migration Policy Institute said that as of 2023, 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants lived in the United States. The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau puts 334,415 of them in Florida, with just under 13,000 in Hillsborough and more than 5,000 in Pinellas.

A small contingent waved flags outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa last Saturday morning, after news that Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro had been seized by the U.S. and brought to New York where he will face drug trafficking charges.

Stephanie Rojas, who was born in the U.S. and is the daughter of Venezuelan immigrants, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that “Trump saved us,” referring to Nicolás Maduro’s 12-year rule over the country. “To see my family be happy, and for me to finally hope to go back to my country, it’s great,” she added.

Dr. Norma Camero-Reno is a member of Comandito Internacional Tampa, a group which supports Maduro critic María Corina Machado Parisca who was blocked from running for president by Maduro’s government. 

“We’re just celebrating that Venezuela is starting the new phase of democracy and liberty,” Camero-Reno said, adding that it’s unclear how Trump will handle the situation. “At this point of time, we don’t know what will happen. We hope that the transition is going to be in peace and fast.”

No question, Maduro led a government of repression, but his capture—plus the Trump administration’s attacks and plans to handle the country’s oil reserves—has also drawn condemnation from critics who say the strike was unconstitutional.

Others, like drug historian Dr. Herzberg have argued that Trump’s so-called war on fentanyl is wrong “in almost every way.”

Republicans, he told WMNF’s The Skinny last November, like to say that “open border Democrats” allowed jobs to leave and drugs to come in and that a reversal would get the country back to the way it was before the “drug problem.”

“One of the basic problems with that, from a historian’s point of view, is it gets the history wrong. America has had a long series of drug problems, way back to the American Revolution,” Herzberg—a professor of history and director of the drugs, health and society program at the University at Buffalo—added.

Five miles away from Raymond James Stadium, protesters from The Answer Coalition were on the steps outside Tampa City Hall for their own protest against the war on Venezuela.

Ali Alramini, a member of Tampa Bay’s Party for Socialism and Liberation told a small rain-soaked crowd that the attacks were the actions of a country that can no longer govern with soft power. “Instead they have to rely on bombings, on genocide. That is not a sustainable strategy. The people of this planet are not going to sit down and be bombed into submission. They’re going to stand up,” Alramini added.

Zeta, a Venezuelan rock band exiled to Florida and headed for Ybor City on Jan. 16, expressed ambivalence on Saturday morning, saying it does not sympathize with Trump, support the government in their home country, or feel represented by the voice that is unfolding.

“It is hard not the question the motivations behind the U.S. intervention, and to believe that there isn’t a darker, self-serving interest at play,” the band wrote on social media, adding that it left Venezuela because staying became unbearable. “We do not want to silence the voices of our people who are feeling relief or joy today. That feeling is real and it deserves respect.”

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This article appears in Dec. 25 – 31, 2025.