The Biden administration is resuming direct deportations to Venezuela in an effort to curb the record influx of illegal immigrants from the country, which has recently exacerbated an already strained situation at the border.
Venezuelans who “do not establish a legal basis to remain” in the U.S. will be shipped back, a senior Biden official announced Thursday.
Venezuela has agreed to receive migrants “who do not take advantage of the lawful pathways and instead arrive irregularly at our southern border and do not qualify for relief,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a news conference in Mexico City.
The U.S. has already flagged some Venezuelan arrivals in federal custody to be “removed promptly in the coming days,” the official added.
“This also reflects a long-standing approach by the Biden-Harris administration that balances historic expansion of safe, orderly, lawful pathways with harsh consequences for those who seek to cross our border irregularly,” a senior Biden official told NBC News.
The administration’s decision comes amid chaos at the southern border, where a surge of many Venezuelan migrants, as well as those from other Central American countries and other destinations, have poured into the interior. In September, about 50,000 Venezuelans unlawfully entered the U.S, an all-time record that drove a yearly high in migrant apprehensions that month, according to data collected by CBS News.
In an attempt to accommodate and assimilate some of the many thousands of Venezuelan newcomers, the Biden administration announced last month that it would grant temporary legal status to nearly half-a-million Venezuelans who had arrived in the U.S. by the end of July, allowing them to live and work in the country without fear of deportation. The administration cited political instability in their home country as justification. About 242,700 Venezuelans were covered under the TPS designation before the change, which may make another 472,000 migrants eligible. The re-designation protects the migrants from deportation and gives them employment authorization.
A senior administration official said Thursday that the deportation order does not represent an inconsistency from the expansion of TPS for Venezuelan migrants, according to NBC.
“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,” the official said. “So this is not something any new or different from the long-standing practice of this administration, but really all previous administrations.”
The situation at the border has devolved to such an extent that Mayorkas on Wednesday announced that the administration would resume building the border wall for the first time since former president Donald Trump left office, in violation of President Biden’s campaign promises. As part of the directive, Mayorkas waived 26 federal laws.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Mayorkas said in a notice.
The new construction project will add an additional 20 miles to the border wall in Starr County, Texas, which has been reported as an area experiencing “high illegal entry.” Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, in which the county is located, has recorded over 245,000 illegal migrants cross into the U.S. in fiscal year 2023.
Mayorkas confirmed the deportation update at a press conference in Mexico on Thursday.
“We have made a determination that it is safe to return Venezuelan nationals who have arrived in the United States subsequent to July 31 and do not have a legal basis to remain here,” he said.