As the situation in Venezuela deteriorates, Florida’s Republican U.S. senators are starting to back some kind of armed military intervention to provide aid and restore order.

Some Venezuelans in Florida, estimated at about 140,000 residents with about 38,000 who are U.S. citizens, are increasingly supportive of that move.

“A lot of ideas not on the table in the past are now on the table,” said Samuel Vilchez Santiago, 22, a Venezuelan activist from Orlando who is a student at Princeton University.

But many are still frustrated by the lack of asylum protections for Venezuelan refugees, despite a bipartisan push to get the Trump administration to change its stance against doing it.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who is traveling to Panama, Colombia and Argentina this month, has been the most outspoken U.S. lawmaker when it comes to possible military action.

Scott spokeswoman Sarah Schwirian said Scott has spoken with President Trump, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence about military options.

“Military action is never the first choice,” Schwirian said. “But this is the time to rid Venezuela of [Nicolas] Maduro and his regime, and Senator Scott won’t give up the fight for freedom in Venezuela.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s spokeswoman pointed to a Spanish interview with Univision 23 in January, in which Rubio said, “No one here is advocating for military intervention. Here what we are advocating for is a democratic and peaceful change. … [But] on every occasion — be it in Venezuela or anywhere in the world — the United States always has the option of protecting Americans and our interests, using everything at our disposal, that includes military forces, if necessary.”

In a later Tweet from April 11, Rubio wrote “the U.S. can’t ignore the growing presence of Russia military, the daily flights from Iran & the violent ‘colectivo’ gangs the [Venezuelan army] refuses to confront.”

Rubio has also shared, without comment, pictures of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi after he was killed by rebel forces in 2011, helping to spawn the chaotic Arab Spring across the Middle East.

U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Kissimmee, said House Democrats “generally do not support military intervention in Venezuela.”

“However, we would support a United Nations or other multinational-led coalition to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid,” Soto said. “It is also critical for the future of Venezuela’s democracy to have peaceful, fair elections now.”

More than 40 countries have proclaimed their support for Juan Guaido as acting president in opposition to Maduro, who declared himself the victor of a highly disputed May 2018 election in which rival candidates were banned from running or left the country.

Years of economic downturns under Maduro and previous president Hugo Chavez have led to huge food shortages and annual inflation rates as high as 1.3 million percent. As many as a third of Venezuelans in the once oil-rich nation are eating just one meal a day, according to a recent study.

The situation has gotten worse since the beginning of the year, with attempts to bring in aid from Colombia being met by violence from armed Maduro loyalists at the border.

This past month, the White House announced new sanctions aimed at the Central Bank of Venezuela and a Venezuelan subsidiary bank in Nicaragua, according to the Washington Post.

Bolton announced last month the administration was “not afraid to use the phrase ‘Monroe Doctrine,’” referring to a longstanding policy that the U.S. has the right to get involved in Western Hemisphere countries – and a term loaded with significance for critics of U.S. military interventions.

Santiago said although the Venezuelan community in Florida is supportive of military intervention, he has some reservations based on past U.S. actions.

“Personally, I recognize the horrendous consequences of U.S. military intervention in Latin America and that history,” Santiago said. “I feel like it’s a hard position to [say], ‘Okay, perhaps it will work in Venezuela,’ but in all the other countries it hasn’t worked.”

He wants to know what the plan would be, whether it would be a quick operation to overturn the Maduro regime and then leave, or if the U.S. would be supporting countries such as Colombia or Brazil or even the Venezuelan military turning on Maduro.

“The conversation is not whether I’m for military action or not,” Santiago said. “The conversation is more nuanced in a lot of ways.”

William Diaz, a journalist and founder of Casa de Venezuela in Orlando, was more optimistic about U.S. military action.

“At this point today, the U.S. has to do it directly,” Diaz said. “The Venezuelan Army is unlike Iraq and some other countries. The Army is totally destroyed [and demoralized]. Effective action will last two to three hours and that will be it.”

Diaz also dismissed allegations from Maduro supporters that the U.S. has ulterior motives.

“Why are people saying, ‘The U.S. is coming to take the oil’?” he said. “No! … The [American] people will put pressure for the troops to go back home.”

Diaz was impatient, however, for the Trump administration to grant Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans, allowing them to seek asylum in the U.S.

Soto, who has sponsored such a bill in the House, praised Rubio for doing the same in the Senate and called on Scott to join in as a co-sponsor. Scott has said he wants TPS to be part of a larger border security deal.