DORAL, Fla. — Doral Mayor Christi Fraga said on Friday that she has been concerned about some of the city’s residents amid President Donald Trump’s focus on drugs in the Caribbean near Venezuela and his push for deportations.
Voters elected Fraga, a Cuban-American Republican, last year to serve the city, also known as “Doralzuela” because it is home to a large community of Venezuelan migrants and Venezuelan Americans.
Fraga, a Trump supporter, said she feels some of the Doral residents’ feelings of anxiety.
“There are certain actions that are being taken, and then you are also stripping away from people the ability to have refuge and safety and security, and send them back to a place that could potentially be at war,” Fraga said.
In Las Cuevas, a coastal village in Trinidad and Tobago, Afisha Clement told Reuters she wants to see the evidence that the United States military had to kill her 26-year-old nephew Chad Joseph in a strike on Tuesday in the southern Caribbean.
Rishi Samaroo, the other man who was allegedly killed with Joseph in the Caribbean, was released from prison in 2021 after he was convicted for a 2009 murder, The Guardian reported.
“I’m feeling very hurt. You know why? Donald Trump took a father, a brother, an uncle, a nephew from families. Donald Trump don’t care what he is doing,” said Joseph’s cousin, Afisha Clement, 41, who said Joseph was humble, calm, and a father figure to her young daughter," Clement, 41, told Reuters.
At the White House, President Donald Trump said a “drug-carrying submarine” was the most recent U.S. military target in the southern Caribbean.
“We are undertaking these operations against terrorists,” State Secretary Marco Rubio said.
Trump also said on Friday that Nicolás Maduro made offers to his administration.
“He has offered everything,” Trump said. “You’re right. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to f [expletive] around with the United States.”
U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar agrees with the Trump administration’s treatment of El Tren De Aragua, an international gang founded in a Venezuelan prison, and El Cartel De Los Soles, a criminal organization that involves high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military.
Salazar said she wants the Trump administration to protect the Venezuelans who received Temporary Protected Status, which allowed them to live and work legally in the U.S. and this is why she is advocating for The Dignity Act.
“Let’s give them an opportunity to stay until Venezuela is ready to receive them back,” Salazar said.
Salazar was hopeful about political change in Venezuela.
“I certainly hope that Maduro understands that his days are counted,” Salazar said.
Related stories
- Venezuela floated a plan for Maduro to slowly give up power, but was rejected by US
- A war on drugs or a war on terror? Trump’s military pressure on Venezuela blurs the lines
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