![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/president-donald-trump-listens-during-a-roundtable-on-farm-s-XU3AZWOTM5HGVF5FF2C5QJUJMM.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis was not the Christmas that Mariela G\u00f3mez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants would have thought. <\/p>\n
But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their American dream.<\/p>\n
So G\u00f3mez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter and smiled for her in-laws. <\/p>\n
Hard as she tried, though, she could not ignore the main challenges faced by returning migrants: unemployment and poverty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a modest dinner, not quite what we\u2019d hoped for, but at least we had food on the table,\u201d G\u00f3mez said of the lasagna-like dish she shared with her partner and in-laws instead of the traditional Christmas dish of stuffed corn dough hallacas. <\/p>\n
\u201cMaking hallacas here is a bit expensive, and since we\u2019re unemployed, we couldn\u2019t afford to make them.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump listens during a roundtable on farm subsidies in the Cabinet Room of the White (file image) (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
G\u00f3mez, her two sons and her partner returned to the city of Maracay on October 27 after crossing the US-Mexico border to Texas, where they were quickly swept up by US Border Patrol amid the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on immigration. <\/p>\n
They were deported to Mexico, from where they began the dangerous journey back to Venezuela.<\/p>\n
They crossed Central America by bus, but once in Panama, the family could not afford to continue to Colombia via boat in the Caribbean. <\/p>\n
Instead, they took the cheaper route along the Pacific\u2019s choppy waters, sitting on top of sloshing gasoline tanks in a cargo boat for several hours and then transferring to a fast boat until reaching a jungled area of Colombia. <\/p>\n
They spent about two weeks there until they were wired money to make it to the border with Venezuela.<\/p>\n
G\u00f3mez was among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who left their home country in the last decade, when its economy came undone as a result of a drop in oil prices, corruption and mismanagement. <\/p>\n
She lived in Colombia and Peru for years before setting her sights on the US with hopes of building a new life.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s second term has dashed the hopes of many like G\u00f3mez.<\/p>\n
As of September, more than 14,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, had returned to South America since Trump moved to limit migration to the US, according to figures from Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica. <\/p>\n
In addition, Venezuelans were steadily deported to their home country this year after President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, under pressure from the White House, did away with his long-standing policy of not accepting deportees from the US<\/p>\n
Immigrants arrived regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by a US government contractor or Venezuela\u2019s state-owned airline. <\/p>\n
More than 13,000 immigrants returned this year on the chartered flights.<\/p>\n
G\u00f3mez\u2019s return to Venezuela also allowed her to see the now 20-year-old daughter she left behind when she fled the country\u2019s complex crisis. <\/p>\n
They talked and drank beer during the holiday knowing it might be the last time they share a drink for a while \u2014 G\u00f3mez\u2019s daughter will migrate to Brazil next month.<\/p>\n
G\u00f3mez is hoping to make hallacas for New Year\u2019s Eve and is also hoping for a job. <\/p>\n
But her prayers for next year are mostly for good health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ask God for many things, first and foremost life and health, so we can continue enjoying our family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was not the Christmas that Mariela G\u00f3mez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28708,65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-203187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-central-south-america","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}