By Caroline King
“What comes next?”
That is the question many Venezuelans around the globe and here in North Carolina are asking right now amidst uncertainty about the future of their country.
Bombs were dropped on Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, during the Jan. 3 U.S. military operation to capture then-president Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro and his wife were taken to New York, where he was indicted with narco-terrorism conspiracy and other charges. He pleaded not guilty to all of them and is awaiting trial.
“I’m glad he is going to face justice,” said Miguel Rodriguez Cardenas, a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill from San Cristóbal, Venezuela.
“But at the same time, I feel bad for my family back home because they don’t have the same freedom that I have here,” he added.
Rodriguez Cardenas came to North Carolina as a political refugee when he was 14, fleeing Maduro’s regime, which was defined by strict crackdowns on protesters and political opponents.
Rodriguez Cardenas said he is still fearful for the members of his family who still live in Venezuela, because although Maduro was removed, the rest of his administration has remained in power.
Katherine Ortiz said she felt similarly. Ortiz runs Komagocho, a food truck that serves Venezuelan cuisine in Cary, North Carolina.
Ortiz left Venezuela and came to the U.S. 10 years ago, and while she said she was happy to see Maduro removed, she is still cautious of the leadership that remains.
“Right now, it’s like when you step on an anthill, everyone is on the defensive and wants to sting you,” she said in Spanish. “So, it’s not the time to go back either.”
Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s former Vice President, became the acting president, leaving many feeling that even without Maduro, his administrative policies would continue.
“She was a member of Maduro’s inner circle,” Patrick Duddy, the former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, said. “She is as complicit in the abuses of the regime as anyone.”
Rodríguez has appeared to differentiate herself from Maduro this past month by freeing hundreds who were charged with treason under Maduro’s rule, but Duddy said that her actions are likely just due to the threat of further U.S. military intervention.
Many Venezuelans are not convinced that she represents a true change for the country and are left wondering why the U.S. removed Maduro but left Rodríguez, his second in command, in power and did not establish María Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition party, instead.
Venezuelan voters in the 2024 election voted overwhelmingly for the opposition party. Machado was not allowed to be on the ticket after the country’s Supreme Court loyal to Maduro banned her from running. She helped campaign for Edmundo González, who won twice as many votes as Maduro, but Maduro suppressed the results and claimed victory anyway.
Duddy said he thinks the Trump administration is trying to avoid an Iraq repeat, when the U.S. effectively removed all political figures and dismantled the nation’s military following the fall of Saddam Hussein.
“Well, what then happened was something approaching civil war,” Duddy said. “Chaos.”
Duddy said he believes that the Trump administration views keeping Rodríguez temporarily in power as necessary for a more peaceful transition.
Whatever that transition might look like or whenever it may be, Duddy said the unrest in Venezuela is far from over.
“This is not the beginning of the end,” Duddy said, quoting Winston Churchill. “This is not even the end of the beginning. We are in early days still.”
Rikallah Homsi has lived in the U.S. for two years, but was born and lived most of his life in Venezuela. He said that as a former military man, he understands the decision to leave Rodríguez in power.
Homsi’s parents immigrated to Venezuela from Syria, attracted by the oil boom in the 1970s.
But the crash in oil prices and production in the 2010s during Maduro’s rule tanked the country’s economy and was part of what drove Homsi to leave and make the journey to the U.S. by foot.
“As the licit economy crashed, illicit activity spiked, drug trafficking, illegal gold trafficking, etc,” Duddy said.
Conditions in Venezuela worsened, and Homsi decided to make the trek to the southern U.S. border.
He crossed the Darién Gap, a treacherous 100-mile-long jungle connecting Colombia to Panama. Once in Mexico, he was able to apply for asylum and enter the U.S.
But despite how much he went through to get here, he said he hopes he can go back home one day.
He said he misses Venezuela—the food, his friends and especially his children.
His kids still live in the country and sends money back to them. His daughter is 17, and his son is 14. He said many people living in Venezuela have to rely on money sent from family members in other countries just to afford to eat.
Homsi said he does not miss this new Venezuela, but the old, prosperous Venezuela he grew up in, when the economy thrived thanks to the oil industry.
Rodríguez signed a bill at the end of January to give foreign companies more rights over Venezuela’s oil, hoping to attract investors.
But Duddy says it may take time for oil companies to fully invest because of the uncertainty within Venezuela.
“Some of the major U.S. oil companies, the very companies with which President Trump has met, have also said that for them to go back and to make the kinds of investments that are going to be necessary to rebuild the sector, they are going to need a lot of both physical security in the country and also security for their investments,” Duddy said.
For now, Homsi, Ortiz and Rodriguez Cardenas are all still waiting to see when they can visit home and what will come next for Venezuela.
Rodriguez Cardenas said he has hope.
“It’s a very hopeful moment,” he said. “Maybe this is finally our chance to have that transition to democracy and have the democratic wish of the people finally be heard.”
Aaliyah Mitchell, Medha Nair and Karen Zhu contributed reporting.
