Venezuelan opposition leader's wife emerges as potent force

With her youthful energy and globe-trotting, the 26-year-old wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is emerging as a prominent figure in his campaign to bring change to the crisis-wracked country.

Fabiana Rosales' age and informal dress, often jeans, while touring Latin America belie an inner toughness and maturity cultivated with her activist husband during violent street protests in Venezuela's capital. Her husband has since claimed Venezuela's interim presidency with the support of dozens of nations including the United States, setting up a standoff with President Nicolas Maduro, who refuses to step down amid what he calls an attempted coup.

"Look, I am the wife of President Juan Guaido and I will accompany him on whatever route he takes and we will overcome whatever obstacles we face as we have done through all our years together," Rosales said during an interview in Peru's capital of Lima. "But I got involved in politics because I want to change my country."

Fabiana Rosales, left, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, speaks to reporters before attending Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

"I don't want my daughter to grow up wanting to leave Venezuela," she said, a reference to the roughly 3 million Venezuelans who have fled their country amid a collapsing economy, hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicines, and now blackouts.

As her husband leads efforts to remove Maduro through protests at home and by trying to persuade Venezuela's military to abandon the socialist leader, Rosales is trying to drum up international support for Venezuela's beleaguered opposition with highly publicized tours of neighboring countries.

This month she traveled to Peru and Chile, where she met with the presidents of both countries, and spoke in universities about Venezuela's humanitarian crisis. On Wednesday, Rosales heads to the White House, where she will meet with Vice President Mike Pence, as the U.S. ratchets up sanctions on the Maduro administration.

Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, smiles as she is introduced to members of the Venezuelan community in New York after attending Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

Rosales met her husband at a youth rally for Voluntad Popular, an opposition party she has worked with since her university years. She has become a household name in Venezuela in recent months, standing at her husband's side in rallies attended by thousands. Recently, she has also taken on the role of international ambassador for Venezuela's opposition, as her husband becomes bogged down in domestic affairs.

Venezuela's first lady in waiting has helped her husband look more presidential, says Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst.

"She is a professional, young, educated woman, and to a certain extent she is conservative," Pantoulas said. "That image corresponds to (Venezuelan) stereotypes of what a presidential couple should look like, especially for those in the middle classes."

Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, speaks to members of the Venezuelan community in New York after attending Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

In the interview, Rosales say that her "most important role is to be a mother, and I'm also a sister and wife."

Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president in late January. The opposition leader was serving as the president of Venezuela's Congress, and said the constitution allowed him to form a transitional government because Maduro had been re-elected in a sham vote last year.

The political challenge turned Guaido into an instant target of the Maduro administration, which blamed him of organizing violent protests and quickly put him under a travel ban.

Fabiana Rosales, second from right, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, speaks to members of the Venezuelan community in New York after attending Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

Guaido snuck out of Venezuela for a one week tour of South America, in which he led a failed effort to move several tons of food and medicine into the country. But upon returning he has focused most of his energy on sustaining his movement, which has lost some of its momentum, as Maduro remains in power and Venezuelans focus on the difficult task of surviving.

In her recent trips abroad, Rosales has met with large crowds of Venezuelan migrants, urging them to keep their faith in her husband and telling regional leaders that "a dictator" like Maduro does not fall in a matter of days. She says the Venezuelan opposition is making progress, designating ambassadors around the world, and recovering control of Venezuelan oil assets abroad with the help of the United States.

Rosales' opponents have cast her recent tour as a desperate attempt to keep Guaido in the international spotlight, as the Venezuelan crisis drags on and the world's attention moves elsewhere.

Fabiana Rosales, second from left, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, celebrates Mass with Guaido supporter and activist Erick Rozo, left, at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

"She is trying to boost Guaido's image, as support for his movement in Venezuela deflates," Arevalo Mendez, Maduro's ambassador to Chile, told a local news outlet last week.

The daughter of a journalist and a farmer from the rural state of Merida, Rosales says she became interested in social issues early as she accompanied her mother to interviews.

She decided to follow in her mother's footsteps and study journalism, but also helped her father transport his crops to Caracas along roads where he was sometimes shaken down by corrupt military guards.

Fabiana Rosales, center, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, and Guaido supporter and activist Erick Rozo, left, pray while celebrating Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

Rosales says she has gone through many of the travails currently faced by Venezuelans, including the harrowing medicine shortages.

Her father died in 2013, after suffering a heart attack. He could have survived Rosales said, but there was no medicine in his village to stabilize him, and no ambulance to take him to the nearest hospital.

"I spent a lot of time in pain, wondering why this had happened to me," she said. "But now I have taken this as a lesson from life. And I am working for my daughter to inherit a better country."

Fabiana Rosales, left, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, hugs Aminta Perez, mother of Venezuelan police Officer Oscar Perez, while celebrating Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

Fabiana Rosales, second from right, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, and Aminta Perez, third from right, mother of Venezuelan police Officer Oscar Perez, pose for a photo with members of the Venezuelan community in New York after attending Mass at St. Teresa's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tuesday, March 26, 2019. Rosales is emerging as a prominent figure in Guaido's campaign to bring change in the crisis-wracked country. (AP PhotoMary Altaffer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments over the Trump administration’s push to end legal protections for people fleeing war and natural disaster from countries around the world, including Haiti and Syria.

The justices refused to immediately lift the protections for hundreds of thousands of people Monday, allowing them to live and work in the U.S. legally for now.

The court is expected to hear the case next month.

The conservative-majority court has sided with the Trump administration on the issue before and allowed the end of similar legal protections for a total of 600,000 people from Venezuela while lawsuits play out, exposing them to potential deportation.

The Trump administration filed emergency appeals after lower courts stopped the immediate end of temporary protected status for 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,000 people from Syria.

The Justice Department argued that the Department of Homeland Security has sole power to end the protections, which were originally designed to be temporary.

But immigration attorneys argued that both countries are still largely in crisis and people can't return safely.

Courts in New York and Washington, D.C., have agreed to delay the end of protections, with one finding that “hostility to nonwhite immigrants” likely played a role in the decision to end protections for Haitians. Appeals courts left the decisions in place.

A total of about 1.3 million people fleeing armed conflict and natural disasters around the world have been granted temporary protected status. The administration is asking the court for a broad ruling that would block courts from intervening when Homeland Security decides to end a designation.

Authorities have said conditions in the affected countries have improved and denied racial animus played a role.

Temporary protected status allows people to legally live and work in the U.S., though it does not provide a path to citizenship. Homeland Security has moved to terminate the program for people from multiple countries since Republican Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The U.S. Supreme Court as seen during a snowy day on Capitol Hill Thursday, March 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)