{"id":77150,"date":"2026-01-03T20:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T20:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/77150\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T20:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T20:19:07","slug":"philadelphia-region-responds-to-u-s-military-strikes-on-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/77150\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia region responds to U.S. military strikes on Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

While U.S. lawmakers have praised and condemned the Trump administration\u2019s military strikes on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, a leader in the Philadelphia region\u2019s Venezuelan community said the day\u2019s news brought about \u201cmixed emotions\u201d regarding the South American country\u2019s future.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Venezuelan American \u2026 what is happening right now in our nation, in our country, in [the] United States, I do not agree with many of the things that the federal government is doing at all whatsoever,\u201d said Nelly Jim\u00e9nez-Ar\u00e9valo, who works in local government and previously served on former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs. \u201cHowever, I think this was the only way that Maduro was going to leave Venezuela.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Jim\u00e9nez-Ar\u00e9valo emphasized that Maduro is an \u201cillegitimate president.\u201d Domestic and international analyses by media organizations and election watchdog groups found that opposition party candidate Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez defeated Maduro<\/a> in the 2024 elections.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cI think what people don\u2019t understand is that Maduro wasn\u2019t going to leave on his own,\u201d she said. \u201cHistory will tell \u2026 what is going to happen next. But I think that if the military wouldn\u2019t have taken Maduro, he wouldn\u2019t have gone peacefully.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the attacks, Jim\u00e9nez-Ar\u00e9valo says she is concerned for the safety of her family members living in Venezuela. Many individuals from Maduro\u2019s regime are still in power, and she fears retaliation from paramilitary groups that are friendly to Maduro and persecution of political prisoners.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a transition,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the same time, you\u2019re thinking about the people who are [on] the ground, who are living through this. I think that the best is to really make sure that there is actually a real transition of government, from dictatorship to a new democracy, that is going to help Venezuela to start healing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Jim\u00e9nez-Ar\u00e9valo also criticized Trump\u2019s policies as \u201ccontradictory,\u201d saying his administration is carrying out a \u201ccoordinated attack\u201d on Venezuelan immigrants in the United States by taking away Temporary Protected Status and work permits, as well as ramping up deportations.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we\u2019re going to go \u2026 to Venezuela and defend Venezuela\u2019s democracy, but here we treat Venezuelans \u2026\u00a0 like criminals, right?\u201d she said. \u201cSo I think that\u2019s a contradiction.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

During a press conference Saturday morning at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump said the United States will run Venezuela \u201cuntil such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.\u201d Trump offered few details, saying only that \u201ca group\u201d would control the Venezuelan government, but he did speak about the prospect of contracting with American oil companies to rebuild infrastructure in Venezuela to extract the country\u2019s vast oil reserves.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to run the country right,\u2033 Trump said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to make a lot of money.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Trump said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the press conference characterized as \u201cindicted fugitives of American justice,\u201d were being taken to New York to face drug and weapons charges.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[39628,4424,69,71,70,31344],"class_list":["post-77150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-bombing","tag-military","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}