In April 2002, I marched toward the presidential palace in Caracas with hundreds of thousands of other Venezuelans. We were not radicals. We were ordinary citizens who had realized that Hugo Chávez was not interested in governing democratically. He was intent on turning Venezuela into a dictatorship where dissent was treated as treason.
That afternoon changed my life — and my country — forever.
We wore black T-shirts to signal opposition. The palace sat at the end of a dead-end street, packed with people demanding Chávez step down. There was no cell service. It was hot. I felt empowered, part of a massive civic awakening. We believed that if we spoke loudly enough, democracy could still be saved.
Then a man near me, listening to a small radio, heard the words that froze us all: “They’re shooting at Puente Llaguno.” Within seconds, tear gas filled the air. People ran toward us in panic. I ran too, trying to escape through the metro — only to find the gates shut. I was forced to walk through neighborhoods loyal to Chávez, where we were insulted, threatened, and spat on.
That was the moment I understood Venezuela was entering an internal war.
I made it home alive. My mother had been crying in the street, terrified I had been killed. Nineteen people died that day. The unrest continued as employees of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) went on strike to oppose Chávez’s takeover of the company. Fearing for my safety — especially because I wanted to continue protesting — my mother begged me to leave for the United States.
By September 2002, I did. Like most Venezuelans at the time, I believed my stay would be temporary. We assumed Chávez would not last. Venezuela was not Cuba. We had oil. We were wrong.
In 2003, Chávez fired more than 18,000 PDVSA employees, including my mother, who had dedicated her life to that company since 1982. Overnight, she lost her job, pension, health insurance, and retirement. It was punishment for refusing to let Venezuela’s national oil company become the president’s personal bank.
That was the end of my return home.
As the regime consolidated power, independent media vanished, political prisoners multiplied, and repression became routine. In 2014, university students — children, really — rose up demanding freedom and opportunity. The response was brutal. Many were killed. Others were tortured or imprisoned. Survivors later told their stories after they managed to escape.
The world issued statements. Then it kept buying Venezuelan oil.
In 2013, Chávez died. Nicolás Maduro took over and transformed repression into a system. Eighteen times, the regime negotiated with international actors. Eighteen times, it violated the agreements. Each delay bought the dictatorship more time — and Venezuelans more suffering.
During the Biden administration, I was practicing as an immigration attorney in San Francisco when I began noticing a troubling pattern. Venezuelans were arriving in masse — some genuine victims of persecution, others unmistakably not. Venezuelans recognize each other instantly through accents, behavior, and mannerisms. Many of the newcomers were the same people who had supported or benefited from the regime, now exploiting weak U.S. border policies.
On social media, pro-regime TikTok influencers openly encouraged lawlessness: They won’t call the police. There are no consequences. Background checks were ignored. Border agents were instructed to accept claims of Venezuelan nationality without verification. Criminal networks took advantage.
This was not compassion. It was negligence.
The tragedy of Venezuela is often misrepresented as a left-versus-right debate. That framing is not just wrong — it is dangerous.
Venezuela is not a socialist experiment gone wrong. It is a narco-state. Iran is not conservative; it is a theocracy. Russia is not nationalist; it is authoritarian. These regimes share one defining trait: they do not care about their people.
The real divide in the world today is not ideological. It is between democracy and autocracy.
When media outlets excuse tyranny for ideological comfort, when lawlessness is romanticized, and when victims are silenced to preserve narratives, democracies rot from within. Venezuelans know this because we lived it.
More than nine million Venezuelans were forced to flee their country. Hospitals ran without medicine. Teachers went unpaid. Infrastructure collapsed. Meanwhile, regime elites hid gold abroad and bought palaces overseas. Much of the world looked away.
Democracy does not collapse overnight. It erodes when truth is sacrificed to ideology, when institutions are hollowed out, and when citizens are told to ignore what their eyes can clearly see.
On Jan. 3, 2026, I woke up to see my mother dancing in our kitchen with a joy I had not seen in decades. Nicolás Maduro had finally been apprehended. It was only the beginning — but it was hope.
Despite the anger of some Democrats in Congress — who spoke loudly about democracy while helping keep the regime intact — the Trump administration is finally doing what Venezuelans have begged the international community to do for nearly three decades: make clear that the price of remaining in illegitimate power is higher than the cost of allowing free and fair elections. An unprecedented military presence in the Caribbean has disrupted narcotics trafficking, seized sanctioned petroleum vessels, and cut off the regime’s financial lifelines. The apprehension of the narco-state’s leader sent an unmistakable message.
For the first time in a generation, Venezuelans can see that the dictatorship’s days are numbered — not because of rhetoric, but because consequences are real.
Karina Velasquez is a Venezuelan-born immigration attorney based in California and a longtime advocate for democracy and the rule of law.
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Updated Jan. 22, 2026, 10:07 a.m. to include The Voice’s policy on op-eds.