As news of the seizure of Nicolás Maduro rippled across New York City, dozens of Venezuelan migrants gathered inside a Methodist church on the Upper West Side to try to make sense of their future.
Many celebrated the arrest. One woman praised President Trump. Some mused about going back to their homeland. Others worried that the United States would use the intervention to force out asylum seekers. With the aid of a slide deck, a community organizer offered updates while the group debated the consequences of America’s attack on their homeland.
New York was a central point of the Venezuelan immigration crisis that began under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Between 2022 and 2024, thousands of migrants from Venezuela made up the largest share of new arrivals in the city, reshaping one corner of the ethnically diverse borough of Queens. Many have been caught in legal limbo as they await the outcome of their immigration cases. After Mr. Trump returned to power last year, he stripped their protections in his campaign to deport more people.
Inside St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church on Monday, migrants lined up to pick out clothes and snacks — bananas, Hawaiian rolls, yogurt, cheese sticks — as Niurka Meléndez, a Venezuelan asylum holder who helped organize the event, led the group in conversation with a microphone. Afterward, she held a raffle for strollers, suitcases and potted poinsettias.
Xiomara, 25, sat at a front pew, her baby bouncing on her lap as she listened to Ms. Meléndez. Xiomara arrived from Venezuela three years ago and lives in a shelter in Manhattan with two of her four children. She spoke on the condition that she be identified by only her first name because she fears retaliation against her and her family by the Venezuelan government. She praised Mr. Trump for giving her hope for a better life at home.
“I’m confused, but happy and thankful because he did something that nobody could do,” Xiomara said in Spanish. “I think we owe him our lives.”
About seven miles east at El Budare Café, a Venezuelan restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, a heavily Latino neighborhood, patrons dined on scrambled eggs and cachapas as they reflected on the weekend’s events.
At one table, Eladio Castañeda, a 47-year-old Jackson Heights resident, said that he hoped to return to Venezuela within a few months so he could visit his daughters, whom he has seen only on FaceTime since leaving his homeland. Mr. Castañeda has lived in the United States for the past 25 years.
“They have to clean up the government,” Mr. Castañeda said in Spanish. “It’s full of rats. It’s like the subway here.”
Venezuelans in New York, many of whom live in shelters or are barely getting by in one of the world’s most expensive cities, said they felt a swirl of emotions that reflected the tension between their approval of Mr. Trump’s decision to capture Mr. Maduro and their frustration over his immigration policies. Many were afraid that their relatives in Venezuela might be in danger after Mr. Trump’s raid of Caracas, which killed at least 80 people.
In 2021, before the recent influx of migrants, only about 15,000 New Yorkers were of Venezuelan heritage, including about 12,000 who were born in Venezuela, according to a census analysis by Social Explorer, a data research company.
From the spring of 2022 through late 2023, more than 136,000 migrants — many from Venezuela — arrived in New York, with many placed in shelters in Manhattan and Queens.
“I don’t even know what to think,” Melisa, 36, said in Spanish, tears welling. Melisa, who lives at a Manhattan shelter with her husband and two children, is seeking asylum and spoke on the condition that only her first name be used out of fear of risking her immigration case. She worried for her mother and siblings in Venezuela: “It’s hard. I don’t know if tomorrow the military will turn on its people.”
Misinformation from Venezuela has deepened anxieties. Ms. Meléndez said that she and her husband heard news of the attack on Caracas after relatives began sending frantic messages from Venezuela. The couple runs the nonprofit organization Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, which grew out of their efforts to share what they learned from starting over in New York. They said that many Venezuelans in New York were sending information from American news outlets to family members in South America, who then erased the messages from their phones to avoid retaliation from the Venezuelan government.
“There were rumors of every kind,” her husband, Héctor Arguinzones, said in Spanish. “It took the whole world by surprise.”
In other Venezuelan enclaves, such as Doral, Fla., where about 40 percent of residents are of Venezuelan origin and most oppose Mr. Maduro, revelers took to the streets to celebrate the military operation. While some in New York have also rejoiced, the reaction has been more muted, said Donovan J. Richards Jr., the Queens borough president. Mr. Richards said that people were afraid of being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who have been seen arresting people on the borough’s sidewalks.
“People are living in fear here and still trying to figure out a way to process all of Donald Trump’s policies,” Mr. Richards said. “They don’t know whether to be out on the streets.”
Duvin Flores, 19, who works at El Budare in Queens, said that he was elated to hear of Mr. Maduro’s capture. Mr. Flores arrived in the United States with two older brothers three years ago and moved to New York by himself. He said that he has struggled to understand the perspective of those who have opposed the arrest.
“I don’t know what’s going on in those people’s minds,” Mr. Flores said in Spanish. “At the end of the day, I think those same people don’t really know what Venezuela has been going through.”
At the church in Manhattan, some migrants from Ecuador and the Dominican Republican said that Mr. Maduro’s downfall was an inspiration for other Latin American countries.
“Maduro deserved what happened to him,” said Luis Savino, 60, a restaurant worker who moved to New York about 17 years ago from the Dominican Republic. “Venezuela has many resources, and it has fallen into poverty because they have stolen everything.”
Ms. Meléndez said that many Venezuelans in liberal New York have been afraid to celebrate publicly or share candid opinions for fear of being cast as Trump supporters. Many migrants have fled political repression in Venezuela.
Rita Gutierrez, 28, who joined other Venezuelans at the church, said that she felt indifferent about the military operation because it was too soon to know whether it would make a significant difference for everyday people in her homeland.
Other migrants, like Elizabeth Rodríguez, 38, who arrived in New York about a year ago and lives in a shelter in Manhattan, said that they felt compelled to denounce Mr. Maduro’s government because of the oppression they endured at his hands.
“We have been fighting these people for more than 30 years, and we haven’t been able to do anything,” Ms. Rodríguez said in Spanish. “I had to leave my country because of it.”
Ana Ley is a Times reporter covering immigration in New York City.
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