Amid Trump’s immigration crackdown, a Venezuelan family struggles to keep its legal status in “Status: Venezuela,” a new documentary from ProPublica and FRONTLINE FEATURES. For about a decade, Venezuelans have faced economic, political and social collapse. Yineska and her family fled to the U.S., arriving in 2023 with temporary legal status and hopes for a better life. But on the day President Donald Trump returned to office, he began stripping protections away.
This film is set in and around Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S. Many residents were staunch Trump supporters because of his hard-line stance against Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president. But in 2025, Venezuelans became a key target of Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
His administration says it’s focusing on “the worst of the worst.” Most of those caught up in the dragnet do not have any criminal convictions in the U.S. On the front lines of the crackdown are hundreds of thousands Venezuelan families like Yineska’s who arrived between Trump’s terms in office.
“Status: Venezuelan” follows Yineska and her family as they weigh fear against hope, struggling to decide whether to fight for the life they have built or leave everything behind.
Surviving CECOT
This short documentary tells the story of three Venezuelan men who were branded by the U.S. government as Tren de Aragua gang members and deported by the Trump administration to CECOT, a prison in El Salvador notorious for its brutal conditions. All three men said they had no connection to Tren de Aragua and were not gang members.
Produced by ProPublica in collaboration with Alianza Rebelde Investiga, Cazadores de Fake News and The Texas Tribune, Surviving CECOT details what the men say they experienced inside the prison and explores the lasting trauma of the ordeal on them and their families.