Increasingly throughout 2022, many of the migrants illegally crossing our southern border from Mexico have been citizens of Venezuela, a South American nation wracked with political turmoil and violence. Until now, the Biden administration has admitted virtually all those Venezuelan “asylum seekers,” claiming the lack of diplomatic relations with their country’s government made other options–such as Title 42 deportation–impossible. That policy resulted, for example, in at least 25,000 Venezuelans admitted during the month of August alone, out of the more than 200,000 illegal migrants of all nationalities encountered.
Now, however, after months of reckless mass admissions and insistences that the “border is secure,” the Department of Homeland Security on October 12 announced a new deal with Mexico. Henceforth, Venezuelan migrants can be returned to Mexico to await adjudication of their asylum claims. The new arrangement is similar to the broader Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program created by Trump and abolished by Biden. (Citizens of two other countries without U.S. diplomatic ties–Nicaragua and Cuba–and whose numbers have likewise been spiking, are not included in the deal.)
Also on Wednesday, DHS announced a new “humanitarian parole” program available to Venezuelan citizens who meet a set of qualifications, including: having a supporter in the U.S. for financial and other support, passing biometric screenings, and meeting certain public health requirements including vaccinations. This new program is theoretically capped at only 24,000, however, a small number compared with the huge numbers of Venezuelans pouring out of that country.
And, finally, the U.S. and Mexico have reportedly reached another agreement whereby the Mexican government will ramp up enforcement of laws against human smuggling operations in that country.
The various arrangements have an air of “Too Little, Too Late” about them, but that’s what we’ve got. For more, see Fox News.