Friday's announcement that democracy champion María Corina Machado had won the Nobel Peace Prize was of course a big boost for a country struggling against a brutal dictatorship like Venezuela's.

But it was also a much needed morale lift for Venezuelans outside the country — especially in the U.S., where this year many of them are facing the prospect of mass deportation by the Trump administration.

Machado's Nobel "showcases the reality" of the Venezuelan situation, said Maria Alejandra Marquez, a Miami expat who heads the nonprofit watchdog INRAV, which monitors Venezuelan regime corruption and abuse.

"Most Venezuelans here were forced to leave" Venezuela because of regime violence and humanitarian crisis, Marquez said — and Machado's "recognition is a reminder that we're about fightin

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