Some migrants got work status. Now, others will be flown to Venezuela.
The Biden administration will resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants, the largest group found at the U.S.-Mexico border last month, to their economically troubled country as their arrivals continue to grow.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas called the new measure in Mexico City on Thursday one of the “strict consequences” that the Biden administration links to the expansion of legal pathways for asylum seekers.
“Our two countries are challenged by unprecedented levels of migration in our hemisphere,” Mr. Mayorkas said, referring to Mexico.
The repatriation flights are expected to begin soon, two U.S. officials said, although they did not provide specific details on when the flights would begin departing. The officials were not authorized to reveal details of the government plan and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The resumption of deportation flights comes not long after the government increased protected status for thousands of Venezuelans who had previously arrived in the United States. They must have entered the country before July 31 this year to qualify for temporary protected status.
In making official the recent expansion of protections, President Joe Biden’s administration said this week that it had determined that “extraordinary and temporary circumstances continue to prevent Venezuelan nationals from returning to safety.”
Mr. Mayorkas on Thursday drew on the contrast with the announcement just days later of more deportations, saying: “We have decided that it is safe to return Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the United States after July 31 and have no legal basis have to stay here.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who led a US delegation to Mexico, added that “we have an ironclad obligation to provide protection to those who qualify. That remains at the forefront of everything we do.”
The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service criticized the move to resume deportations, noting the apparent contradiction with the expansion of temporary protected status.
“Returning thousands of Venezuelans to the same unimaginably dangerous conditions they just fled is a deeply problematic policy for the world’s humanitarian leader,” the organization’s CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said in a statement.
Administration officials would not discuss details of how often deportation flights would go to Venezuela or describe how Venezuela agreed to take back its citizens, other than to say that the U.S., like other countries around the world, has long encouraged Venezuela to take back its nationals to accept back. Cuba, another U.S. adversary, announced earlier this year that it would begin accepting Cuban deportees, but there is only one flight per month.
The US had returned some Venezuelans via commercial flights, but in relatively small numbers and through third countries.
In Venezuela, the government said it had reached an agreement with U.S. officials on a safe and orderly repatriation.
“The Venezuelan migration in recent years is a direct consequence of the application of unilateral coercive measures and a blockade of our economy,” the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. It was said that the government would support repatriated Venezuelans.
The US move is the latest attempt to tackle the growing number of migrants, as the administration comes under increasing pressure from Republicans and mayors from the president’s own party to do more to slow the arrivals.
The announcement came as Mr. Blinken and other top Biden administration officials met with their counterparts in Mexico City on security issues.
Mr Blinken discussed the migration flows on Wednesday with Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena and the foreign ministers of Panama and Colombia. The talks continued on Thursday, including meetings between Mr Blinken and US Attorney General Merrick Garland with Mr López Obrador.
Ms Bárcena said on Thursday that about 10,000 migrant encounters were recorded at the US-Mexico border on Wednesday.
“We will continue to take strong actions, including continuing some efforts we already have regarding assisted returns, coordinating the dismantling of human trafficking networks and human trafficking,” Ms. Bárcena said.
Mr. Blinken said the U.S. government is working to support these efforts.
“We are taking steps to help our most vulnerable, those most vulnerable to organized crime, by training nearly 200 Mexican immigration officials to better screen, identify and assist potential victims of human trafficking,” Mr. Blinken said.
“The scale of this challenge requires that we redouble our efforts, that we do more to increase legal migration… more to address the root causes and more to humanely deter irregular migration,” Mr. Blinken said.
Mr. López Obrador said Thursday during his daily news briefing that Mexico has reiterated in talks its position that investments should be made to boost development in the countries migrants are leaving.
“People are not leaving their cities because they want to, but rather out of necessity,” the president said. He also criticized the Biden administration’s announcement Wednesday that it would waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction. Mr. López Obrador had previously praised Biden for not building more border wall during his presidency.
In August, U.S. Border Patrol made 181,509 apprehensions at the Mexican border, a 37% increase from July, but little change from August 2022 and well below the more than 220,000 in December, according to figures released in September.
The U.S. has tried to get Mexico and countries further south to do more. In April, the US, Panama and Colombia announced a campaign to slow migration through the treacherous Darién Gap, which divides Colombia and Panama. But the migration through the jungle has only accelerated and is expected to reach around 500,000 people this year – the vast majority coming from Venezuela.
Venezuelans were stopped 25,777 times in the first 17 days of September, a 63% increase from the same period a month earlier, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures released by Mr. López Obrador. This included some people admitted for planned asylum appointments, but the vast majority were illegal.
Venezuela has been plunged into a political, economic and humanitarian crisis over the past decade, forcing at least 7.3 million people to migrate and making food and other necessities unaffordable for those who remain.
The vast majority who fled settled in neighboring Latin America, but many have come to the United States in the past three years.
Deportation flights were suspended in part because the US maintains little diplomatic relations with the country.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Michael Balsamo and Colleen Long reported from Washington. AP writers Rebecca Santana in Washington and Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.