{"id":110973,"date":"2026-01-05T04:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/110973\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T04:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:56:07","slug":"some-venezuelans-in-north-texas-celebrate-maduros-capture-hopeful-for-the-future-we-know-this-is-just-a-first-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/110973\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Venezuelans in North Texas celebrate Maduro’s capture, hopeful for the future: “We know this is just a first step.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The celebration continues among the Venezuelan community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area following Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>‘s capture. Sunday afternoon, several dozen people gathered at Vitruvian Park in Addison.<\/p>\n

“It’s something amazing. You feel relieved because we’ve been in this situation for 27 years,” said Jani Mendez. “We’re glad this country. They opened their arms to us, but we’re here because it was a necessity; because we- they- were afraid to be in Venezuela<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Among the crowd was a Venezuelan politician, Angel Caridad.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been in the United States for five years now,” said Caridad. “We had to flee because our lives were in danger. My house was shot up.”<\/p>\n

According to data from the U.S. Census, Texas has the second-largest population of Venezuelans in the U.S., behind Florida. An estimated 122,000 Venezuelans live in the state, with approximately 20,000 in the DFW area.<\/p>\n

“At this moment at this point, all my family is here. I brought all my family because I was scared something happened to them,” said Mendez.<\/p>\n

Many celebrating also say this is something they are doing for those in Venezuela who cannot.<\/p>\n

“Imagine not being able to express how you feel, or not being able to say what you think, simply because you’ll be accused of being a terrorist,” said Maria Huerta.<\/p>\n

Those attending were also asked their thoughts on the U.S. running Venezuela<\/a> during the transition.<\/p>\n

“It’s very good, it’s very important, and it’s very necessary,” said Caridad.<\/p>\n

“We know this is just a first step, and many things still need to happen and will happen over the next few days, but knowing that the person at the top has been taken down is a relief,” said Huerta.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The celebration continues among the Venezuelan community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area following Nicol\u00e1s Maduro‘s capture. Sunday afternoon,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8872,102,116,41138,430,287,27,29,28,1153,23159],"class_list":{"0":"post-110973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-addison","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-nicolas-maduro","12":"tag-north-texas","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-texas-headlines","16":"tag-texas-news","17":"tag-trump-administration","18":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}