Between hope and uncertainty, Venezuela’s diaspora watch what comes next : NPR

Venezuelans living in Chile celebrate in Santiago on January 3, 2026, after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after launching a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela.

JAVIER TORRES/AFP via Getty Images

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JAVIER TORRES/AFP via Getty Images

SANTIAGO, Chile — Early last Saturday morning, the Chilean capital awoke to the sound of jubilant cheers echoing between the towers.

News of the U.S. operation to capture President Nicolás Maduro had filtered from Caracas, and Chile’s large Venezuelan diaspora could barely contain its joy.

More than 1,000 people gathered at Parque Almagro in Santiago to hug, applaud, sing and cry.

“I was in the park with them all day,” said Mary Montesinos, 49, a Chilean representative for Voluntad Popular, one of Venezuela’s main opposition parties.

“The topic of conversation was that we will all return home, that the regime will fall and that we will regain our democracy.”

But like many, Montesinos wants to urge caution. “They captured Maduro, but the regime did not fall,” she said. “They’ve been building it for 25 years, it’s going to take a long time to take it down.”

Amid one of Latin America’s worst refugee crises ever, the United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that up to 23 percent of Venezuela’s population fled the country as the economic crisis deepened. At the end of last year, up to 2,000 people were still leaving every day.

Chile has welcomed many of these migrants.

Montesinos arrived in 2003 with her Chilean husband, when there were almost no Venezuelans living in the country. She remembers that the first diaspora gatherings were largely attended by Chileans who had grown up in Venezuela, and they prepared typical Venezuelan dishes using whatever substitute ingredients they could find.

Now stores across the country sell queso llanero, a crumbly white cheese, and Venezuelan brands of corn flour. Tiny bars in desert towns sell bottled Venezuelan drinks, and you can even find arepas and tequeños in windy Punta Arenas, Chile’s southernmost city, just above the Antarctic Circle.

Venezuelans living in Chile celebrate in Santiago on January 3, 2026, after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after launching a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela.

JAVIER TORRES/AFP via Getty Images

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JAVIER TORRES/AFP via Getty Images

Several waves of migration have brought Venezuelans to the south of the continent, many arriving via other Latin American countries in search of jobs and opportunities. During the coronavirus pandemic, with borders closed, many have also arrived illegally on foot through the desert.

In Chile’s 2024 census, Venezuelans were by far the largest group of foreigners in the country among its 18.5 million people. It registered 669,000 Venezuelans in Chile, far more than the second largest diaspora: 233,000 Peruvians. The majority is young, with only 5% of the Venezuelan population in Chile over the age of 45.

But the Chileans were very reluctant towards the new arrivals.

“When they report crimes on the news, they only mention the nationality of the perpetrator if he or she is foreign, thus establishing a negative perception of Venezuelan migration,” Montesinos said.

Chile’s far-right President-elect José Antonio Kast won a December election by linking a wave of illegal migration to people’s feelings of insecurity and fears over organized crime. He has made a habit of threatening illegal migrants at his public rallies by counting down the days until they leave Chile before his March 11 inauguration.

An estimated 334,000 Venezuelans live illegally in Chile. Kast spoke of detention centers, border walls and ditches to stop illegal immigration; and aggressive policies to pursue, detain and deport illegal migrants.

Kast enthusiastically welcomed the U.S. intervention in Chile, calling the operation “good news.”

The outgoing left-wing president, Gabriel Boric, was more circumspect: “Today it’s Venezuela, tomorrow it could be any other.” [country]”.

Roberto Becerra, 43, arrived in Chile in 2017, fearing for his safety in Venezuela due to his political activities.

He helped organize three polling stations in Santiago for Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections, in which President Maduro claimed victory while international observers widely claimed the opposition had won.

“What we can do from Chile, as members of political parties, is make visible what is happening in Venezuela,” he said.

“We are the voice of those who cannot speak out, because look what happened in Venezuela: no one could say anything, while in the rest of the world we went out into the streets to celebrate.”

But even if uncertainty remains for many, nostalgia for Venezuela makes many members of the Chilean diaspora dream of a return home.

Montesinos says that, under the right circumstances, she would return to help rebuild the country: “If there was a call to return [to Venezuela] to help with the reconstruction, I was going there,” she said.

“Being part of this story would be truly inspiring.”