With a rising number of Venezuelans arriving at the US-Mexico border as the November midterm elections approach, Joe Biden has sought help from an unlikely source: Trump’s playbook.
Two years ago, Democrat Joe Biden slammed President Donald Trump’s immigration policies for inflicting “cruelty and exclusion at every turn,” even against those leaving Venezuela’s “brutal” socialist government of socialist Nicolas Maduro.
Last week, Biden utilized Title 42, a Trump-era law that his own Justice Department is challenging in court, to deny Venezuelans leaving their crisis-torn country the right to seek asylum at the border.
The measure, first implemented by Trump in 2020, claims emergency public health power to bar people from requesting asylum at the border, citing the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Venezuelans who walk or swim across America’s southern border will be deported, and any Venezuelan who unlawfully enters Mexico or Panama will be ineligible to enter the United States. However, up to 24,000 Venezuelans would be allowed to enter the United States through airports, similar to how Ukrainians have been admitted since Russia’s incursion in February.
According to a Mexican official who was not authorized to address the topic publicly and spoke anonymously, Mexico has requested that the US admit one Venezuelan on humanitarian parole for every Venezuelan it expels to Mexico. So, if the Biden administration paroles 24,000 Venezuelans to the United States, Mexico will only accept 24,000 Venezuelans ejected from the United States.
The Biden policy represents a sharp departure from the White House, which had chastised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, both Republicans, for transporting Venezuelan migrants “fleeing political persecution” a few weeks ago to Democratic strongholds.
“These were children, mothers fleeing communism,” stated White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Immigrant advocates have quickly criticized Biden’s new proposal, with many pointing out Trump comparisons.
Venezuelan migrants have returned to Mexico.
“Rather than restoring the right to asylum decimated by the Trump administration,” Jennifer Nagda, from the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said, “the Biden administration has dangerously embraced the failures of the past and expanded upon them by explicitly allowing expulsions of Venezuelan migrants.”
According to the government, the program is intended to provide a “lawful and orderly” pathway for Venezuelans to join the United States.
Why the abrupt change from Joe Biden?
After assuming office in January 2021, Biden deferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which utilized its authority to maintain the Trump administration’s conclusion that a public health concern existed, necessitating the expedited expulsion of asylum seekers.
Members of Biden’s own party and activist groups had expressed concern about the public health justifications for keeping Title 42 in place, especially since COVID-19 was spreading more broadly in the United States than abroad.
After months of internal deliberation and planning, the CDC announced on April 1 that it would lift the public health order and resume routine border processing of migrants, providing them the opportunity to seek refugee status in the United States.
Homeland Security authorities were bracing for an increase in border crossings.
According to top administration sources, officials inside and outside the White House were divided over eliminating the power since they believed it effectively reduced the number of people crossing the border illegally.
According to an Associated Press source, a court order in May that kept Title 42 in place owing to a challenge from Republican state authorities was met with quiet satisfaction by some in the administration.
The recent increase in migration from Venezuela, caused by political, social, and economic instability, dashed officials’ hopes of finally seeing a pause in the mayhem that had defined the border region for the previous year.
Venezuelans were the second-largest nationality coming at the US border after Mexicans by August. Given that the United States’ relations with Venezuela meant that migrants from the country could not be readily returned, the situation became increasingly difficult to manage.
So an administration that had rejected several Trump-era initiatives geared at keeping migrants out sought to make the asylum procedure easier, and boosted the number of refugees permitted into the United States, went to Title 42.
It arranged for the Venezuelans to be sent to Mexico, which has already agreed to receive migrants expelled under Title 42 if they are from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador.
Meanwhile, Justice Department lawyers continue challenging a court decision that maintains Title 42. They are fighting Republican attorneys general from more than 20 states, who say Title 42 is “the sole safety valve stopping this Administration’s already terrible border control tactics from devolving into an utter disaster.”
Under Title 42, migrants have been ejected from the United States more than 2.3 million times after crossing the country’s land borders from Canada or Mexico, while the majority attempt to enter through Mexico.
Beginning May 23, the administration declared that it would cease removing migrants under Title 42 and return to detaining and deporting migrants who did not qualify to enter and remain in the United States – a lengthy process that permits individuals to seek asylum in the United States.
“We are deeply alarmed by the apparent acceptance, codification, and expansion of the use of Title 42, an irrelevant health order, as a cornerstone of border policy,” Witness at the Border’s Thomas Cartwright stated. “One that revokes the legal right to seek refuge.”
A rival lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union is also attempting to eliminate Title 42, which could render the administration’s proposal ineffective.
“Anyone has the right to seek asylum regardless of where they came from, how they arrived in the United States, or whether they have family here,” said ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt.
