Those who know me well know that I have deep and lasting friendships within the Venezuelan community. Through those relationships, I have come to understand—personally and painfully—the brutality of life under Nicolas Maduro’s rule. In the aftermath of the recent U.S. military action inside Venezuela to arrest Maduro, I spoke first with trusted Venezuelan friends to hear their perspectives before finalizing my own.

Their message was clear and unwavering. They despise Maduro and the atrocities his regime inflicted on their families and communities. One friend told me about a seventeen-year-old girl from her hometown who was arrested in the middle of the night for participating in political protests and sent to El Helicoide, the regime’s notorious torture center. She was permitted a single phone call to her family. During that call, she said she would rather die than endure another day of torture. Another friend spoke of a widely respected former mayor arrested by the regime’s secret police for supporting the opposition. He was tortured and later died in that same prison. As my friend explained, “We do not leave our country out of preference, fashion or ambition. We leave out of fear for our lives, simply for trying to exercise basic freedoms.”

Since the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, Venezuela has been ruled by Nicolas Maduro not through consent, but through fear, coercion, and violence. Political opponents were jailed, tortured, and killed. Journalists were silenced. Protesters disappeared. The basic pillars of democracy—freedom of expression, freedom of the press, civil liberties, and self-determination—were systematically dismantled starting with Chavez and continuing under Maduro. To oppose the regime was to risk imprisonment, torture, or death.

The consequences of this repression did not stop at Venezuela’s borders. Economic mismanagement, corruption, and hyperinflation fueled mass poverty, food and medicine shortages, and the collapse of public services. One in five Venezuelans fled the country, creating one of the largest mass migrations in modern Latin American history. For a time, the United States recognized this humanitarian catastrophe by offering protection to those fleeing persecution through asylum and temporary protected status—protections later eliminated by the Trump administration, even as it acknowledged conditions severe enough to justify military intervention.

Maduro’s regime further entrenched itself through alliances with drug cartels and criminal networks, enabling narcotrafficking with the consent—and often assistance—of the Venezuelan state. At the same time, the regime aligned itself with governments hostile to U.S. interests and basic human rights. Venezuela’s vast oil reserves became a focal point of global geopolitics, benefiting adversarial foreign powers while sanctions aimed at punishing the regime also deepened civilian suffering and raised energy costs worldwide, including here at home.

There is no serious debate about who Nicolas Maduro is. He is a dictator. A criminal. A man who brutalized his own people, facilitated drug trafficking, and aligned himself with our adversaries. That reality is broadly accepted by the international community.

The critical question, however, is not whether Maduro is a criminal dictator—but whether that fact justifies unilateral U.S. military action. And if so, where does that logic end? Cocaine moved through Venezuela, but the drug killing the most Americans today is fentanyl, whose chemical precursors largely originate in China—a country with its own grave human rights abuses. Does that mean we should send our military to remove Xi Jinping? What about Iran, Russia, or North Korea? By the standard employed by the Trump administration, war could be justified with nearly any adversarial nation.

The Trump administration will argue that anyone who questions this military action must be indifferent to Maduro’s crimes and their effect on our nation. That false, zero-sum narrative is both dishonest and dangerous. It ignores the reality that there are alternatives to invasion—tools that can hold dictators accountable without destabilizing nations, endangering civilians, sacrificing American lives, or undermining international law.

We are a nation founded on the rule of law, respect for sovereignty, and the belief that people have the right to determine their own futures. Those principles cannot be applied selectively. No matter how reprehensible a foreign leader may be, the United States does not possess the inherent authority to invade a sovereign nation and impose change at the barrel of a gun if we are not under threat ourselves.  America must always oppose oppression. But we must do so in ways that reflect our values—not merely our power—and that do not deepen the suffering of those already living in fear and uncertainty.

This decision was not only wrong morally and legally—it was wrong from a national interest standpoint. History repeatedly shows that military intervention without legitimacy, planning, and international consensus often replaces one crisis with another. And now that unilateral action has been taken, we cannot simply walk away. Our actions have created a new reality in Venezuela, and with it comes responsibility—for stability, humanitarian relief, civilian protection, and the conditions necessary for genuine democracy to emerge. Once again, America risks finding itself engaged in nation-building.

When I asked my Venezuelan friends how they felt about Trump’s actions, despite their hatred of Maduro, their response was uncertainty and fear, despite the desire to celebrate Maduro’s removal. They fear what comes next. They fear this intervention was driven primarily by oil interests, and that it will result in deals that preserve corruption while doing little to improve the lives of ordinary Venezuelans or to stem the drug trafficking that continues to destabilize the region.

I will lose no sleep over Maduro’s personal fate; whatever justice he faces is of his own making. And while I share my Venezuelan friends’ hope for a free and prosperous Venezuela, I do not believe that outcome will be achieved through Trump’s use of military force. I believe our own national interest will be weakened—especially if we are ultimately forced to commit troops to secure stability and impose a desired outcome. If this intervention leads to backroom deals that preserve the corrupt power structures of the remaining Maduro regime in exchange for favorable oil terms while leaving the machinery of repression intact, the United States will lose enormous moral authority on the world stage.

I also have other profound and growing concerns heightened by Trump’s recent actions: the fate of Venezuelans who sought refuge in the United States. I have long and strongly opposed the decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans. The international community has widely recognized the grave dangers faced by people living under the Maduro regime—and Trump himself implicitly acknowledged those dangers by claiming conditions justified military action. Yet despite this recognition, his administration stripped protection from Venezuelans who fled brutality, sought asylum in good faith, and were promised safety by the United States government.

The deportation of these individuals has already been devastating for our communities, but my newest concern is what awaits those who are returned after this military action—especially as Kristi Noem and officials have indicated deportations will continue, sending people back to a regime that remains firmly in power and seeks retribution. We must honor the promise we made to these brave individuals. Temporary Protected Status must be immediately reinstated for Venezuelans who were previously approved, and deportations of those who held protected status must be halted at once.  

It is tragic that this lesson remains unlearned. Throughout our history, America has been reminded that the true measure of leadership is not found in how swiftly or forcefully we wield power—but in whether we possess the wisdom to act in ways that genuinely advance freedom, stability, human dignity, and our national interest.