Mixed Reactions For Venezuelans In Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — Amid the overnight strike in Venezuela, here at home in Utah, Venezuelans celebrate their roots with authentic Venezuelan food — prepared in about a dozen food trucks. They say it’s also to show solidarity with the U.S.

But the strike against their country leaves some feeling mixed about the situation.  

“I feel very emotional. I feel grateful,” says Gabriela Barrios on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. But Barrios remains concerned for family still there. “My grandmother said she wants to come back, she wants to see me,” she continued. “I really miss my country. I really love my country. I really love my people.”

Barrios isn’t the only one who says living in Venezuela under the Maduro regime felt almost impossible.

“We are happy because for years, many people are dying. Many of us came to another country because that situation over there,” said Juan Aguilar, whose lived in Utah for almost a decade. 

“They don’t let you, like, work or have business because they took your money, like, for whatever reason. So a lot of corruption. Yes. Corruption. Extortion,” Aguilar said.

Utah Senator John Curtis confirmed the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. He posted on X:

“I’ve stood on the border between Venezuela and Colombia and witnessed the level of human suffering inflicted by the Maduro regime. I’ve seen the human cost of failed authoritarian socialism made even worse by the ties to drug cartels, terrorist groups, Russia, and Iran which threaten Americans in our own hemisphere.”

BYU Professor Kirk Hawkins specializes in Latin American Politics. He said many folks fled to the U.S. after fearing for their lives.

“They fled for many good reasons, because they couldn’t find work anymore because the cost of living was now prohibitive, because of how the government was handling the economy,” Hawkins said, “and for most of them, too, there were real political dangers to their lives.”

Lives are now in limbo as many wait for President Trump’s next move.

“It’s hard to see how we’re really going to have an impact with their government, in terms of changing the regime, or in terms of affecting the drug trade, any of these goals that the Trump administration has talked about, because we don’t have boots on the ground,” Hawkins said.