Several dozen protestors gathered on the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street in Newburgh on Sunday to push back against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.
Days after the U.S. seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Venezuela, the protest was led by a coalition of local activist groups including the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) Hudson Valley, Rally Middletown, and the Mid-Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists of America.
“Today we are setting the groundwork for the anti-war movement in the Hudson Valley,” said Javier Fernando Curillo, a PSL Hudson Valley organizer. “We are here to show solidarity with the Venezuelan people [amidst] this egregious war crime.”
Since Maduro’s capture on Jan. 3, he and Flores were arraigned in a New York City federal court last Monday and pleaded not guilty to all charges, including narco-terrorism, weapons charges, and cocaine-importation conspiracy. On Wednesday, the Trump administration said that the U.S. plans to control Venezuela’s oil sales “indefinitely.”
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Protestors held bright yellow signs that read ‘No Blood for Oil’ and ‘U.S. Out of the Caribbean’ alongside a community table with free food for attendees.
Newburgh City Councilmember Giselle Martinez says that the U.S. actions to destabilize foreign nations have a local impact.
“We have our own issues in our own backyard, too, where people can’t afford rent [and] groceries. If we don’t put in the resources to our community, then we definitely shouldn’t be putting [resources] into war to bomb other people,” said Martinez.
Rally Middletown co-founder Amanda Krump said she’s organizing alongside her neighbors to “stop the U.S. war machine.”
“We’ve seen this pattern time and time again,” said Krump. “There’s always some sort of similar excuse as to why we’re disrupting other countries, but at the end of the day there are innocent people being killed in Venezuela, [in] Palestine, [and in] Iraq. There’s countless examples where the American government is meddling in things that are none of their business, and innocent people are getting hurt.”
Image: Protestors gathered on the lawn in front of the John Lewis statue in Newburgh, N.Y. on Jan. 11, 2026 (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)