Faced with a tidal wave of illegal immigrants flooding the country in unprecedented numbers, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday it is planning to begin deporting Venezuelans who have unlawfully entered the country.
“In keeping with our commitment to enforce our immigration laws, and to continue strengthening the consequences for those who cross our border unlawfully, the United States is announcing today that it will resume direct repatriations of Venezuelan nationals who cross our border unlawfully and do not establish a legal basis to remain,” a DHS news release announced.
The move is a major about-face for the Biden administration, which also flip-flopped on the issue of a border wall this week.
President Joe Biden had derided former President Donald Trump’s efforts to build a border wall in a 2021 inauguration speech as a “waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.” As recently as two months ago, Biden’s administration had been trying to sell parts of the unfinished border wall in an online auction.
However, this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared an “acute and immediate need” for a border wall in a Federal Register filing.
The border wall and the deportations are measures that conservatives have long been calling for, as illegal border crossings have reached record levels.
🚨 JUST IN: The Biden administration is restarting DIRECT DEPORTATIONS of migrants to Venezuela amid RECORD numbers of illegal crossings in recent weeks, four US officials told CBS News
Since Biden took office, he has refused to deport illegals back to Venezuela, but the massive… pic.twitter.com/XjmGErJhyb
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 5, 2023
The Associated Press reported that migrant traffic through the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama had drastically accelerated “and is expected to approach some 500,000 people this year — the vast majority from Venezuela.”
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Many of those Venezuelans are fleeing their once-prosperous country due to political and economic upheaval, according to the AP report. That humanitarian crisis has pushed “at least 7.3 million people to migrate and [has made] food and other necessities unaffordable for those who remain.”
The DHS news release said the deportation plan came about as a result of “a decision by authorities from Venezuela to accept the return of Venezuelan nationals.”
However, the plan “is all but certain to raise concerns and condemnation from human rights advocates over the dangers Venezuelan deportees will face in the increasingly repressive country,” The Hill reported.
The DHS statement said its decision to resume deportations “is consistent with the administration’s efforts to implement a strategy of humane, safe, and orderly enforcement of our immigration laws and to process individuals in a fair and fast manner.
“These efforts include the administration’s significant expansion of lawful pathways to enter the United States, including for Venezuelans, which have allowed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to enter the country in a safe and orderly manner through our humanitarian parole process and after making an appointment through the CBP One mobile application.
“Today’s announcement makes clear that we are committed to strictly enforcing immigration laws and quickly removing individuals who do not avail themselves of these orderly processes and choose to cross our border unlawfully.”
Just weeks ago, The Hill reported, the Biden administration “redesignated Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a program specifically designed to avoid deporting foreign nationals into dangerous situations.”
That move allowed over 400,000 Venezuelan immigrants who arrived before July 31 to stay here and work legally, “an official recognition that conditions in Venezuela are too dangerous for safe returns,” according to the report.
A senior Biden administration official told The Hill, “We granted Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan nationals who are in the U.S. as of July 31, a few weeks ago. And we, as a matter of policy and as a matter of historical practice, continue to remove individuals to countries that have TPS designations after the date of the TPS designation.
“So this is not something new or different from the long standing practice of this administration, and really all previous administrations.”
NBC News, quoting another senior administration official, reported that “The U.S. has already identified people in federal custody who arrived after July and ‘will be removed promptly in the coming days.’”
Deportation flights “had been paused in part because the U.S. has few diplomatic relations with the nation,” the AP reported, adding that, “U.S. officials would not say how Venezuela agreed to accept back their citizens except to say that, like other countries around the world, the U.S. has long encouraged Venezuela to take back its nationals.”
