Originally published El Pais
The Venezuelan community in the United States, which largely supported the Republican, is disappointed by the new administration’s policies against them, especially the withdrawal of protection for exiles
Sometimes Pedro Correa thinks that there is more to all this, some political game that in the end will present a great plan for Venezuelans. It is the only consolation he can offer himself. He cannot fathom that Donald Trump recognized that more than 90% of the Venezuelan community voted for him in the November elections, and that now his first decrees against immigration have been directed precisely against them. “The issue is not that he has attacked immigration in general, but specifically against Venezuelan immigration. If he was grateful for our vote, what is this double talk?” he asks.
Like Correa, many Venezuelans feel as if Trump has bitten the very hand that voted for him at the polls. The Republican promised during his campaign to maintain a policy of “maximum pressure” against Nicolás Maduro, but his new Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, insists that Venezuela is now a safe country, to which all exiles must return (on deportation flights if necessary). “In Venezuela, the conditions for returning have not been met,” Correa says.
The 70-year-old Venezuelan cannot say that he is “regretful” of having voted for the Republican Party, a faction that, he says, aligns with his interests as a Christian and a conservative. But he no longer knows what to think. He arrived from Venezuela in 1994 and, once he had obtained American citizenship, his first vote was for Barack Obama, a guy who seemed “charismatic” to him; he liked the idea of the first African-American in power. But in the following two elections he distanced himself from the Democrats. “Because of the debauchery of the Joe Biden administration,” he says. And by “debauchery” he means issues of gender identity in education or the participation of trans people in sports, with which he does not agree.
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