Friday night into Saturday morning, Ulisses Andrade was trying to get into Venezuela from Colombia when his phone started blowing up with friends from Seattle reaching out.
“I started receiving phone calls from my friends in Seattle about the situation in Venezuela, so I didn’t realize that was happening.” Andrade said, “It was very stressful because I didn’t know what was going to happen at the border.”
A few hours later, Andrade crossed into Venezuela. He’s returning to his hometown in Merida City to say goodbye to his dying father.
About 400 miles to the north of the town in Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro was being captured by the United States military.
“I’m really glad the U.S government took this decision in order to take the current president because he was a criminal,” Andrade says
He points to the lives that the Venezuelan government has taken for those who have tried to stand up to it, the elections he calls stolen, and the wealth that has washed away in two and a half decades.
He fled the country in 2001, shortly after Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez, took power in 1999.
“Everybody was leaving the country, including myself. I had to leave Venezuela because, even as a mechanical engineer, I didn’t have any opportunities.” Andrade said.
Andrade says he questions if how Maduro was captured was the ‘right’ method, and isn’t a supporter of President Donald Trump, but believes the South American nation is in a better spot without Maduro.
“We are the Venezuelans: the ones really suffering in this situation for the last 26 years,” Andrade said. “We have been fighting for 26 years, a lot of people have been dying, and we couldn’t do anything.”
©2026 Cox Media Group
