{"id":435893,"date":"2026-01-29T01:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435893\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:25:11","slug":"this-former-venezuelan-opposition-mayor-fears-the-us-will-deport-him-to-the-country-he-fled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435893\/","title":{"rendered":"This former Venezuelan opposition mayor fears the US will deport him to the country he fled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Gaby Duarte believed the United States would offer her family protection after they fled political persecution in Venezuela<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOver there we are going to feel safe, well, we will be safe in the United States,\u201d she recalls, breaking down in tears as she describes how her husband, Carlos Garc\u00eda, a former Venezuelan mayor and opponent of the Maduro regime, persuaded her to move to Ohio.\n <\/p>\n

\n That sense of safety collapsed on Friday, when Garc\u00eda was jailed, not by Venezuelan security forces, but by US immigration<\/a> authorities. He was arrested by ICE agents during a routine check of his immigration status and is now awaiting trial at Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio.\n <\/p>\n

\n In 2017, the couple fled the town they had both grown up in, the Andean mountain city of M\u00e9rida in western Venezuela, where Garc\u00eda had served as a mayor since 2013, and went to Colombia. Five years later, they resettled in the US, while seeking political asylum.\n <\/p>\n

\n In Venezuela, Garc\u00eda faced up to 15 months in prison for opposing the authoritarian then President Nicolas Maduro.\n <\/p>\n

\n Duarte fears that if he loses his case, Garc\u00eda could be deported back to Venezuela, now led by Maduro\u2019s former deputy Delcy Rodr\u00edguez.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cA deportation would put at risk his freedom and his life, as well as the life of our family,\u201d Duarte tells her followers in an appeal video uploaded to Instagram shortly after Garc\u00eda was detained.\n <\/p>\n

\n Speaking to CNN, Duarte described watching two ICE agents in plain clothes enter the room where her husband was being questioned, before escorting him away in handcuffs.\n <\/p>\n

\"Venezuela's<\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe just told me: \u2018Don\u2019t worry, everything is going to be alright\u2026\u2019 and then they took him away,\u201d she says, adding that she is still trying to understand why her own interview minutes earlier ended without incident.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a statement, ICE told CNN that Garcia was first apprehended in February 2022 upon crossing illegally into the US and was later released. The agency said Garc\u00eda \u201cwill remain in ICE custody pending further immigration proceedings and will receive full due process.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Duarte told CNN that they crossed the Rio Grande and voluntarily surrendered to border patrols upon arriving in the United States. Her husband presented their asylum application straight away, she claimed.The couple\u2019s children, Carlota, 7, and Carlitos, 5, were not detained.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey are so young, we had to tell them that daddy is going to stay a few days away, to solve a couple issues on our paperwork, but he will be back soon,\u201d says Duarte, dreading the moment she might need to break her promise to her children and have to explain their father\u2019s deportation to them.\n <\/p>\n

\n In M\u00e9rida, a college town known for its university and stunning mountain landscapes, Garc\u00eda is still remembered for serving as mayor for the anti-Maduro opposition during one of the country\u2019s most volatile political periods.\n <\/p>\n

\n Between 2014 and 2017, tens of thousands of Venezuelans challenged Maduro\u2019s rule in the streets, organizing peaceful marches to demand his resignation and often clashing with government forces and pro-government paramilitaries, known as colectivos.\n <\/p>\n

\n According to human rights organization1, and an investigation by the UN2, between April and August 2017, more than 120 people were killed in political violence in Venezuela, often at the hands of Maduro\u2019s security forces.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Venezuelan government denies these allegations and has criticized the UN\u2019s reports.\n <\/p>\n

\n M\u00e9rida and the mountains around it were a hotspot of protest, a bastion of anti-government resistance and theater to some of the harshest clashes.\n <\/p>\n

\"Carlos<\/p>\n

\n As mayor, Garc\u00eda was responsible for public order, but he joined countless protests calling on Maduro to go.\n <\/p>\n

\n On July 28, he was summoned by the government-controlled Supreme Court3 for a public audience in Caracas, the capital.\n <\/p>\n

\n Garcia and four other mayors were accused of contempt of court for failing to enforce orders to remove barricades from the streets, after the Supreme Court accepted lawsuits filed by people who were against the protests in their municipalities.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe were watching TV and suddenly a news reader came up with the news that the Supreme Court had called Carlos up for an audience, on August 2,\u201d Duarte told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Fearing an escalation in the repression, they fled the same night.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was horrible, we had to escape in the middle of the night, just a backpack and little else to cross into Colombia, because if we had stayed, we knew what was going to happen. Thankfully, it was just us. We didn\u2019t have children back then,\u201d says Duarte.\n <\/p>\n

\n Five days later, Garc\u00eda was sentenced to 15 months of prison.\n <\/p>\n

\n From M\u00e9rida, Garc\u00eda and Duarte built a new life in C\u00facuta, a Colombian border-city where they were able to find work and welcomed their two children, but in 2022 they no longer felt safe there, as Colombian President Gustavo Petro restored diplomatic relations with Caracas and the security situation deteriorated.\n <\/p>\n

\n The decision to move to Cincinnati, where Garc\u00eda\u2019s sister Yohama was already living, was an easy one.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI feel so sad and it feels so unfair that we\u2019re going through this: we had a work permit here until 2030, we pay our taxes and our children go to a good school\u2026 we were building a life here,\u201d says Duarte.\n <\/p>\n

\n After traveling to the US, Duarte claims the couple were interviewed once for their asylum case and given a chance to remain in the US while their application was under review.\n <\/p>\n

\"Carlos<\/p>\n

\n The Biden administration first granted temporary protection status (TPS) to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in March 2021, citing instability at home, and renewed the protection for an additional 18 months in the weeks before Trump\u2019s second inauguration.\n <\/p>\n

\n Cancelling TPS for Venezuelan migrants in October, the Trump administration has made deporting as many immigrants as possible a priority and has brought the issue to the Supreme Court twice, obtaining authorization to continue deportations last year.\n <\/p>\n

\n Duarte told CNN she and her husband had Social Security numbers and were living close to Yohama, who is a permanent resident.\n <\/p>\n

\n Garc\u00eda had lived in the US before, when in 2011 he was selected as a young leader to participate in a State Department program on democracy and transparency, Duarte told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Saturday, Yohama was allowed to visit Garc\u00eda in prison. \u201cHe is fine, he is not with common prisoners and remains in good spirit,\u201d she told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Duarte chose not to leave the house over the weekend, fearing she might encounter other federal agents and make their situation even worse.\n <\/p>\n

\n His trial date has been set for February 10, and the family has enlisted legal representation with a local firm in Ohio.\n <\/p>\n

\n In Venezuela, acting president Delcy Rodr\u00edguez announced Friday the creation of a \u201cProgram of Peaceful Cohabitation\u201d to turn the page on 25 years of political conflict.\n <\/p>\n

\n More than 800 inmates have been released since December as a gesture to support mutual understanding, interior minister Diosdado Cabello has claimed, although human rights activists such as Foro Penal, a group of lawyers who provide legal aid to political prisoners, believe the number to be much lower.\n <\/p>\n

\n The opposition led by Nobel Prize laureate Mar\u00eda Corina Machado has urged the US administration not to side with Rodr\u00edguez but rather to press ahead with a full transition to democracy, although, so far, the White House has opted for maintaining the status quo.\n <\/p>\n

\n After Maduro\u2019s ousting, deportation flights from the US to Venezuela were restored on January 16. If Garc\u00eda was sent onto one of those, his 2017 sentence would probably flash through legal checks deportees normally go through before being released in Venezuela. Those who have pending charges against them are taken to prison on arrival.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cArbitrary detention and torture are commonplace practices in Venezuela, where opposition voters have been victim of a policy of repression from the government,\u201d warned Oscar Murillo, the coordinator of Caracas-based human rights organization Provea.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Venezuelan government has continuously denied similar allegations that have arisen in the past.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201c(Garc\u00eda\u2019s) deportation back to Venezuela would go against the non-refoulement principle: countries cannot expel people from their territory when there is reasonable reason to believe these people would risk irreparable damage, like torture or other human rights violations,\u201d Murillo told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Back in M\u00e9rida, not many of Garcia\u2019s political associates want to speak openly with the press. Despite the new \u201cCohabitation\u201d program, coming out as an opposition activist can be dangerous, especially in the rural regions far away from Caracas where political violence is often more bitter than in the capital.\n <\/p>\n

\n On a secure, encrypted messaging app, a former staffer who served under Garc\u00eda in city hall shared just a few words. \u201cWe\u2019re in shock. Here, everyone is stunned.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gaby Duarte believed the United States would offer her family protection after they fled political persecution in Venezuela.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-435893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}