Alfonzo Castillo came to the U.S. in 2019, fleeing the oppressive Venezuelan regime with his wife, daughter and a dream to keep his restaurant alive. He’s done more than just that — graduating from a food truck to two restaurants, one in Orlando and one in Tampa, and adding a son to his family.

But now his stay in the country where he rebuilt his business and life is fraught with uncertainty.

Amid a turbulent series of deportation initiatives from the Trump administration, the Venezuelan community — numbering 98,000 in Central Florida — finds itself at the center of the storm. The administration is ending a special temporary protective status for immigrants from unsettled countries, known as TPS, under which many Venezuelans including Castillo came to the U.S. And it has dispatched alleged members of a notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, to an El Salvador prison, based on seemingly scant evidence that some say smears law-abiding immigrants as well. Both efforts are being challenged in court, but that only deepens the uncertainty.

“We have invested in this country, we have worked on the restaurant and we want to keep being here,” said Castillo, who asked that the name of his restaurant not be disclosed, noting the publicity has already harmed his business.

The fear has enveloped even fellow Venezuelan-Americans whose immigration status should make them secure.

“It’s to a point that I … carry my passport every single day, and I’m a U.S. citizen for 31 years,” said William Diaz, founder of Casa De Venezuela, a nonprofit that aids the Venezuelan community with branches across the country. “For me to be holding my passport in my pocket, it’s a sign of fear of what’s happening.”

Giuseppe Fiorentino, a naturalized citizen who owns Daninos Trattoria, a Venezuelan-Italian restaurant in Orlando, said he’s seen a big dip in the Venezuelan portion of his clientele in recent weeks. “I think people are not leaving their homes and coming to restaurants because they’re afraid to be stopped in the street and deported,” he said.

The developments have been relentless. At the beginning of the year Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended TPS, originally granted by President Biden in 2021, which brought an estimated 600,000 Venezuelans to the U.S. Soon after advocacy groups and Venezuelan immigrants sued. Earlier this month a federal judge in California halted the efforts to deport Venezuelans with TPS. The Trump administration appealed, and added to the pressure a week ago with an order circumscribing asylum proceedings, a separate avenue which many TPS recipients, Castillo among them, have also turned to.

The community has gained support from local politicians, like U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Kissimmee Democrat who is pushing legislation to give Venezuelans who immigrated before 2021 a path to citizenship. But in the current climate, his chances for success are slim. “Deporting Venezuelans is going to be devastating for our economy because most of these folks work in hotels or tourism,” Soto said. “Immigrants keep the economy working.”

Castillo, 52, was a practicing lawyer in Venezuela for over 20 years but friends who loved his cooking encouraged him to open a restaurant there. He specialized in traditional pepito, a street food similar to a sandwich typically served with grilled meat.

As the country deteriorated under the iron-fisted rule of Nicolas Maduro, the Castillo family left for Florida. Alfonzo worked in construction in the sweltering heat during the day and at night sold pepito out of a food truck.

The work paid off. Now his daughter, 32, is about to begin a medical residency program at the University of Miami and his two-year-old son, born in the U.S., has begun to enjoy trips to Disney.

On Friday, Castillo welcomed a reporter and photographer to his restaurant, which seats roughly 60 at its black tables and red chairs. He still serves pepito but also French fries and hamburgers, taking orders from the counter under a sign that reads “good food, good friends, good times.”

“We are very grateful to the U.S. because we have had security and peace living here that we wouldn’t have had living in Venezuela,” Castillo said in Spanish. “We have been able to contribute to the U.S. as well with our work and doing things correctly and legally.”

Castillo said he understands the Trump administration’s desire to take control of the immigration issue.

“This is their country and we are in their house so we have to follow their rules,” Castillo said. And he is trying to stay positive. “I remember Venezuela and think it could always be worse.”

Last week in Orlando, Venezuelan advocacy organizations from across the nation gathered to dramatize their community’s plight. Advocates called for Venezuelans to showcase their contributions to the U.S. to combat what they called the Trump administration’s narrative that many are criminals. Earlier this month over 200 Venezuelans were hastily deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador with little to no due process. The administration alleges they are members of Tren de Aragua, but what is publicly known suggests many have no such connection.

“We want all criminals to pay for their crimes no matter what their nationality is especially if they are Venezuelans,” said Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, at a press conference at the advocacy group’s summit. “But we also want to stop the stigmatization of one community calling all of us Tren De Aragua when we are still waiting for that evidence to be shown.”

At the summit, some Venezuelan businesspeople shared their stories with the Orlando Sentinel.

Marianella Salazar left Venezuela in 2016, when — among other challenges — finding diapers for her second child became nearly impossible.

“I was scared to even take my car to wait in hour-long lines to get diapers or milk for my two kids,” Salazar said in Spanish. “We were in the 21st century and how is it that we had to go back to using diapers made of cloth and sometimes there wasn’t even electricity or water?”

When she and her husband arrived in the U.S. they began a mailing business in Oviedo. But after three years, Salazar sold it because she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“The United States is the land of opportunities and everyone can start a business and if you’re willing to work you can be successful,” Salazar said. “Because of my cancer treatment I had to take a pill every day for five years. If I were to go back to Venezuela, how would I buy that medicine?”

Salazar is in the U.S. on an entrepreneurial visa and is working to get her permanent residency.

Marco Perez has worked in the kitchens of a Universal Orlando restaurant, Walmart bakery and a Mexican restaurant. But seven months ago he took a leap of faith and created Vzla Foods, which now produces traditional sweet and savory beans sold in many supermarkets across Central Florida.

Perez is in the U.S. on a pending asylum case but he’s concerned he may be returned to Venezuela.

“I’m just starting out my business so I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” Perez said in Spanish. “The uncertainty of it all weighs on me.”

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