Venezuelans pour into streets to celebrate Maduro’s fall

Pro-democracy residents in Venezuela and expats from the country who fled to Florida are among those celebrating the United States’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. 

Details about the U.S. military’s stunning raid on Maduro’s residence were revealed by President Donald Trump and top officials during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, as Maduro and his wife are escorted to New York to stand trial. 

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While a wide range of reactions to the operation included accusations that the U.S. illegally breached international law, many hailed the toppling of Maduro’s regime.

Florida is home to the largest Venezuelan population in the U.S. Many of them poured into the streets of Doral and other areas with chants of “Libertad” on Saturday, singing the U.S. and Venezuelan national anthems. 

“After about 30 years of an abusive government, we can now be happy with the fall of Nicolás Maduro,” Valeria Morillo, who still has family in Caracas, told CBS News. 

“This means everything, since the moment I was born, we lived under an abusive dictatorship,” she added.”I feel so lucky and privileged to be out in the street, whereas people back home in Caracas are scared for their lives.” 

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“It’s not an act of war. It’s an act of freedom,” another Venezuelan said, as people carried the country’s flag and sang together in the early morning hours on Saturday. 

The U.S., Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado, and other international allies have long considered Maduro to have stolen the 2024 election in his country. 

After the U.S. strikes on Venezuela late Friday night, many residents in the country celebrated Trump’s action against Maduro. 

Footage circulating on social media on Saturday showed thousands of Venezuelans in the capital of Caracas jubilantly celebrating the fallen president’s capture. 

“Venezuelans, the hour of freedom has arrived,” Machado said in a statement posted to X. 

“Today, we are ready to assert our mandate and take power. Let us remain vigilant, active, and organized until the democratic transition is complete. A transition that needs ALL of us,” she wrote in a letter addressed to the Venezuelan people. 

“This is the hour of the citizens. Those of us who risked everything for democracy on June 28th. Those of us who elected Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as the legitimate President of Venezuela, who must immediately assume his constitutional mandate and be recognized as Commander-in-Chief of the National Armed Forces by all the officers and soldiers who comprise it,” Machado added. 

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Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, are going to “run” the country until “we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” He promised a “second wave” of “much larger” attacks on Venezuela “if we need to do so.”

“We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country as their homeland,” the president said. “We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind … we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”