Send troops to Venezuela? In Florida, the question splits a community

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MIAMI — Anxious uncertainty hangs over Venezuelan Americans such as Liz Rebecca Alarcón of Doral, Florida, a heavily Venezuelan city outside Miami. Routine conversations at the grocery store or at Ross Dress for Less have been overtaken by questions about whether, when and how the Trump administration might escalate its use of force against Venezuela.

“‘What’s going to happen?’” friends, neighbors and shopkeepers ask each other, Alarcón said. “We don’t know what the outcome is going to be or what the strategy is.”

The administration has been ratcheting up its pressure campaign against Venezuela for months with deadly boat strikes, which a range of experts in laws governing the use of armed force have denounced as illegal, and a significant bu