Driving across Broward, you could feel the energy: Venezuelan families were on the streets, waving flags, honking horns, embracing neighbors. Their joy was unmistakable and entirely understandable.
After years of fear, instability and political persecution, many see a path toward safety and stability in South Florida. Anyone who has watched Venezuelans rebuild their lives knows how deeply they deserve this moment.
But as we honor their joy, we cannot ignore that this decision, like so many others, reflects the president’s pattern of disregarding constitutional limits to achieve a political outcome. The concern is not with Venezuelans, whose resilience and courage enrich our region. It is with the method and the precedent.
South Florida is home to countless people who fled authoritarian regimes. They know better than most that when a leader treats the Constitution as optional, the consequences eventually reach everyone. We should not be blind to the erosion of the rule of law in plain sight.
The joy is real — but so is the danger of normalizing this executive overreach.
Robert Rhoads, Wilton Manors
Boundless hypocrisy
I don’t think anyone could argue that Venezuela’s illegitimate President Nicolás Maduro was a horrific person who terrorized his country and needed removal.
That’s where the hypocrisy begins with the Trump administration.
Setting aside the questionable constitutionality of invading a foreign country to execute a warrant for an alleged drug kingpin, Trump claimed that Maduro poured fentanyl into the U.S. (It’s cocaine.)
Yet he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted of trafficking shipments of cocaine to the U.S. He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who received a life sentence for creating a dark web known as Silk Road, used by drug traffickers, and a Chicago gang leader, Larry Hoover, serving multiple life sentences for crimes, including drug trafficking.
These are glaring examples of Trump’s hypocrisy.
Most overlooked is Trump’s statement that Maduro led “a corrupt administration, enriching themselves and looting the nation’s resources at the expense of the Venezuelan people.” That has been Trump’s modus operandi since he began his second term, a corrupt administration, enriching itself at the expense of the people. His hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Christopher Laurent, Boynton Beach
A magnifying glass
Our nation is in chaos. Our people are without health care, food and money.
By invading Venezuela to rid the country of its authoritarian president, has Donald Trump not held up a magnifying glass to himself?
People have disappeared off U.S. streets and imprisoned or deported to El Salvador’s horrific prison, without due process. Trump pardoned a former Honduran president, a narco-terrorist who poured 400 million pounds of cocaine into this country. Yet, he illegally invades another country to extricate an authoritarian ruler who he claims was pouring drugs into our country.
Like practically everything Trump does, it just doesn’t make sense.
Vivian Woda, Delray Beach
A singular purpose
Trump’s need for Nicolás Maduro is singular in nature: to consult with him on how to lose an election and stay in power.
Jay Rechtman, Boynton Beach
Be very wary
I know some beautiful Venezuelan-Americans in South Florida, and I am happy that they rejoice in the removal of the dictator from their home country.
At the age of 80, I am neither proud nor ashamed of my total dislike of our president and his administration. I would caution against giving him and his “war” secretary any blanket approval to do anything.
The administration’s track record proved that its habit of moving fast and breaking things does not make things better. It only changes things temporarily, causing long-term chaos and permanent pain. Maduro is a bad actor, but beware.
ReGina Skane, Fort Lauderdale
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