Venezuelan residents respond to the nation’s leader being held nearby
On the sidewalks of Second Avenue, near where the bay breeze mingles with industrial smells and asphalt, Sunset Park has taken on a historic gravity. The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), that gray monolith housing many notorious inmates, now houses Nicolás Maduro. For the area’s Latino immigrants, his presence is not a simple judicial matter; it is a collision between the painful past of the Venezuelan diaspora and a present in which the boundaries of their own neighborhood become the cage of a discredited leader accused of narco-terrorism.
A stage for international politics
This working-class, multicultural neighborhood overnight became the epicenter of world geopolitics. The usual hustle now coexists with the feeling that justice is at everyone’s door. It is a kind of visual poetry; the hope of a people’s rebirth after decades of crying out for freedom.
The MDC is no longer just the local jail; it is the place where the man who controlled Venezuela’s destiny now resides, waiting his turn in the U.S. judicial system.
Even those who criticize Donald Trump’s methods for “overstepping” his international role by capturing him agree on one point: no one in Sunset Park sympathizes with Maduro, alleged leader of the notorious Cartel de los Soles.
Criticism of his capture focuses on the idea that Trump exceeded his authority, both as president and on the international stage, since the arrest further complicated an already tense political situation and echoed past regime changes orchestrated by the United States.
But not a single person interviewed by the Post expressed solidarity with Maduro or claimed that he should not be tried for his crimes.
The Voice of the Diaspora: “The Neighbor We Never Wanted”
For some, walking by MDC has become a form of catharsis, facing the demons of the past. Patricia Mejía, owner of Liebre Cafe, upon learning of the dictator’s presence in the detention center, stood outside the prison to vent her frustration by shouting, “Maduro, c--- de madre,” outside its gates.
“I feel a mix of happiness and sadness,” said Mejía. “Happiness, on the one hand, seeing the tyrant wearing his orange jumpsuit in the U.S. penitentiary system, knowing this is the beginning of the end of the regime’s tyranny in my country; and on the other hand, enormous sadness knowing there are people who advocate for the dictator’s release. From the bottom of my heart, I ask those people to please seek information. Read, watch, and listen to what that regime has meant for the Venezuelan people. I wish the whole world could understand that this is the beginning of liberation. Thank God that someone, that the United States, has extended its arm to help liberate the Venezuelan people.”
Others can’t bear getting too close. “In Venezuela, he took our home from us, and now justice brought him to ours so he can be held accountable,” said Luisa, who was forced to leave Venezuela for her own safety. “It’s just a little ray of hope, but I’m not at peace because of those who are still there in my country, and if I visited the area outside the prison I would cry. Nothing takes away the pain of the injustices and horrors we lived through in our homeland, but hope is still alive, and freedom is the longing that sustains our hearts.”
Young people like Edgarlys tell of a life bent by the regime and the criminal structures that serve it. “I never knew another reality. I never understood why some people armed themselves against others, abusing and attacking their own brothers, their own families. I saw how the regime released criminals from prison to make them part of its ‘collectives’ for citizen control. Later, my conscience pushed me to fight and to create support strategies, documenting and publishing content about the regime’s excesses. Because of that, I’m considered a military target, to the point of being persecuted for supposedly betraying the homeland.”
Beyond Politics
Maduro is not being put on trial for his crimes against the Venezuelan people. Rather, he is being tried for trafficking cocaine and for associating with cartels designated as terrorist groups by the United States government. And although these acts are an integral part of his alleged crimes against the Venezuelan people, they leave some victims of his regime feeling that something more is missing. Luisa could barely express what she thought about Maduro’s imprisonment and trial.
“I don’t want to comment,” she said. “It’s been years of pain, of mistreatment. They killed unarmed people.”
According to commentators and analysts around the world, it is believed that Maduro’s capture is part of a plan by Trump to extract oil from Venezuela, which has rich reserves. Under the Chávez and Maduro regimes, the government extracted oil but funneled the money solely to itself, while Venezuelans remained in poverty and those who emigrated worked double shifts to send what they could to their families back home.
Mejía is more optimistic. “It’s my understanding that Trump will sell Venezuelan oil at market prices, that the money will be channeled to the National Bank of Venezuela, and that it will be ensured that those funds are used primarily to provide healthcare and food for the Venezuelan people.”
At this point, it is still unclear how much of the oil revenue will end up going directly toward health and basic needs for ordinary Venezuelans, but for many who witnessed the harm he caused firsthand, Maduro behind bars feels like a long-awaited victory.
“I love thinking that my country is going to be free again,” Mejía said.