For thousands of Venezuelans hoping to reach the U.S.-Mexico border, recent news that Washington has decided to turn back those who have resided in Colombia is only the most recent sign that the path to the United States is disappearing.
The Department of Homeland Security has started returning Venezuelans who had previously resided there via removal flights. Federal authorities are undertaking the effort citing Title 42, a public-health order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the U.S. government has used to turn away migrants at the U.S. border during the COVID-19 pandemic, including those seeking asylum.
DHS confirmed in a statement that on Jan. 27 it returned two Venezuelan nationals back to Colombia, where they had previously lived. The South American nation agreed to receive the flights following several weeks of discussions, a Biden administration official said. The flights, which will be run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are expected to take place on a regular basis.
“The path for the immigrant to enter through the border is increasingly more difficult. It started with Mexico demanding Venezuelans to have visas in order to enter the country,” said John De La Vega, a Miami immigration lawyer specializing in helping the Venezuelan community.
He added: “What we are looking at is a trend that shows that what the White House wants at this point in time is to try to stop the flow of migrants trying to cross the border.”
Press reports coming out of Colombia caused alarm among Venezuelans after mainstream newspapers reported that up to 6,000 Venezuelans detained in the U.S. might be deported to Colombia by the end of February. Those reports gained credibility on Monday after U.S. news outlets, including CNN and the Washington Post, reported that the U.S. government had begun to quietly fly Venezuelans immigrants back to Colombia.
Colombian officials also reported that the first two Venezuelans had arrived on Monday, but the country’s vice president and foreign minister, Marta Lucía Ramírez, denied Tuesday that there is an accord between Washington and Bogota to send back 6,000 Venezuelans.
“It is not true that we have signed an accord with the United States to bring 6,000 deported Venezuelans,” she told reporters, although she admitted that the U.S. has brought up the possibility that some Venezuelans who have arrived with Colombians in an irregular fashion will be deported to Colombia.
Millions flee Venezuela
As of October 2021, over 5.9 million people have fled Venezuela, which faces widespread violence, shortages of food, medicine and basic supplies and lack of access to medical care. The coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed the nation’s hospitals and exacerbated the already existing humanitarian crisis.
Most Venezuelan refugees live in Colombia and Peru, according to the UN Refugee Agency. But tens of thousands have also made their way to the Mexico-U.S. border, looking for better living conditions and work.
The number of Venezuelan nationals intercepted by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border has steadily increased, according to CBP data. Between October 2021 and December 2021, CBP intercepted nearly 60,000 Venezuelans — more than in both previous fiscal years combined.
In March 2021, the Biden administration granted Venezuelans Temporary Protected Status, which allows people from countries in turmoil to live and work temporarily in the United States. At the time, Venezuelans in Doral gathered at El Arepazo restaurant to celebrate the policy.
An estimated 320,000 eligible Venezuelans have until Sept. 2022 to apply for the humanitarian designation. But the measure only applies to those who were already in the country since early March 2021, which means that people who have arrived to the United States after that date are not eligible for TPS.
Colombia has also offered its own version of TPS to Venezuelans since February 2021. In December, Colombian President Ivan Duque said the goal was to give 1.8 million TPS cards to Venezuelans under the Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants program by August 2022.
“May this be the great triumph of an immigration policy, as the world deserves in the 21st century,” Duque said.
“A lot of confused people”
The Venezuelan embassy in the U.S. said in a statement Tuesday that Venezuela’s refugee crisis was caused by the “complex humanitarian crisis generated by the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.” It added that more restrictions will only exacerbate the refugee crisis and will increase human trafficking and smuggling.
“Our firm call is to allow Venezuelan migrants to submit their asylum application, for it to be evaluated according to established procedures, and a final decision be made accordingly,” the embassy said. “Summarily dismissing this humanitarian cry for help only leaves Venezuelans more helpless and vulnerable. Returning them to Venezuela carries even worse consequences,”
Brian Fincheltub, director of consular affairs at the embassy, told the Miami Herald that about 99.5% of Venezuelans who have managed to get into the United States have been able to advance with their asylum cases, despite the instances of the Venezuelan nationals returned to Colombia made public Monday.
The numbers of Venezuelans being turned back are minimal, Fincheltub added, in comparison to other nationalities, which shows that Venezuelans are receiving a special consideration.
“That is important to note because there are a lot of confused people. There are a lot of people thinking that they are about to be deported, while the people that are actually at risk of being turned back are those Venezuelans who have residency in a third country,” he said.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey condemned the relocation of Venezuelans back to Colombia, calling it “extremely disturbing,” and criticized the president’s handling of immigration issues, which has been under fire from both Democrats and Republicans who think Biden isn’t doing enough.
“By continuing to use a page from Trump’s immigration enforcement playbook, this administration is turning its back on the immigrants who need our protection the most,” said Menendez, “Ultimately, the use of Title 42 deprives legitimate asylum seekers of their legal right to seek asylum and pursue their claims in the U.S., and its extended use has created unsafe conditions for vulnerable migrants.”
Venezuelans already residing in South Florida saw the new developments with mixed feelings, fearing their implications for thousands of Venezuelans still trying to reach the United States, but also seeing a need to impose order at the border.
“Obviously it is something that tends to scandalize the Venezuelan community, since Venezuelans have been fleeing a tragic situation. But we also have to respect the right of countries to protect their security and their borders,” said José Colina, executive director of an organization of Venezuelan political exiles. “I don’t like the measure, but I’m not surprised.”
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