U.S. military forces conducted a strike targeting the guarded presidential residence in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 3, capturing Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, as part of an operation to take them into custody due to longstanding criminal charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maduro\u2019s presidency came to an end after nearly 13 years, and he is now being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, facing federal charges. The development has sparked many strong opinions worldwide, particularly among Latino communities.<\/p>\n
Several FGCU Latin American students have expressed mixed feelings about the capture and U.S. involvement in the region. Due to the nature of the event, they have requested to remain anonymous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a horrible person, horrible leader, he was responsible for a lot of human rights violations,\u201d one of the students said.<\/p>\n
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Though she has these strong feelings toward Maduro, she also believes that our country\u2019s government should prioritize Americans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cComing from the perspective of a Hispanic person I\u2019m happy, but I also can\u2019t help but feel like I want our government to focus on its own people,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy would I want to spend my taxpayer money on side quests versus giving back to people with limited resources here?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other FGCU students voiced their full support for Maduro\u2019s removal from power as a long-awaited, necessary step toward political change and a more hopeful future for Venezuela.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Venezuelan people deserve better and more, I can\u2019t imagine all of the hardships they had to face throughout,\u201d said another FGCU student. \u201cNo one should have to go through the struggle of affording basic human needs or having to be silenced for speaking their own thoughts, that should be basic human rights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the Department of Justice, \u201cleaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust,\u201d and say it is a \u201ccorrupt, illegitimate government.\u201d It accuses the government of Venezuela of being linked to drug trafficking, electoral fraud, economic mismanagement and human rights violations under Maduro\u2019s rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing a foreign president captured and taken here to America is something I never thought I\u2019d witness, but I\u2019m not mad at it,\u201d another student said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a ton of videos online of other Hispanics praising his removal, and I could not agree more, especially if Venezuelans themselves are joyful, it makes me certain that his removal was for the best.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While reactions among FGCU students vary, Maduro remains in U.S. custody, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is moving forward with preparations for a three-phase plan to help rebuild Venezuela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. military forces conducted a strike targeting the guarded presidential residence in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 3, capturing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-162002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}