Stay or go? Venezuelan immigrants react to Maduro's capture
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
On January 3, 2026, US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face drug charges. While his arrest has led to questions regarding who will control Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, Venezuelan immigrants are now left wondering how long they will be allowed to remain in the U.S. USA TODAY National News Reporter Lauren Villagran joins The Excerpt to discuss how the fall of Maduro is playing out in Venezuelan immigrant communities in America.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On January 3rd, 26, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and flew him to New York to face drug charges. |
| 0:14.2 | While his arrest has led to questions regarding who will control Venezuela's vast oil reserves. |
| 0:26.7 | Venezuelan immigrants are now left wondering how long they will be allowed to remain in the U.S. |
| 0:34.8 | Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. |
| 0:41.0 | Today is Monday, January 12, 26th. Joining me now to discuss the fall of Maduro and how it's playing out in Venezuelan immigrant communities in America is USA Today |
| 0:46.2 | National News Reporter Lauren Villagran. So good to speak to you, Lauren. Thanks for having me, Dana. |
| 0:52.4 | Lauren, you wrote that sobering realities are setting in. |
| 0:56.8 | Why does the arrest of Maduro put the legal status of some Venezuelan immigrants in the |
| 1:02.2 | U.S. in limbo? |
| 1:03.8 | And how many immigrants are we talking about here? |
| 1:06.0 | Yeah, there's not a perfect number because there is some overlap in the numbers in terms of what people have applied for. |
| 1:13.3 | But the fact of the matter is that more than 600,000 Venezuelan immigrants lost their temporary protected status after the Trump administration revoked it last year. |
| 1:24.3 | And the administration has taken a number of other steps, Dana, to curtail the |
| 1:29.9 | legal pathways that Venezuelans had in the United States. That includes the cancellation of a |
| 1:35.5 | humanitarian parole program called the CHNV program. And they're also sort of squeezing asylum as well, |
| 1:43.3 | looking to have cases dismissed or thrown out before a judge can rule on the merits. |
| 1:50.0 | Deporting immigrants to Venezuela became easier for the U.S. after President Donald Trump took office in 2025. |
| 1:57.9 | What was the process like in previous years and what changed with the new Trump |
| 2:03.5 | administration? So, you know, Venezuela was one of the nations that the U.S. considered |
| 2:08.7 | recalcitrant, meaning that they frequently would not receive a deportation flight. And that was a |
| 2:15.3 | huge issue in the Biden administration, although there were |
| 2:19.1 | at one point negotiations that did allow for some deportation flights. But those had stopped in |
... |
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