Biden looks to Trump-era rules to deport Venezuelan immigrants

2 years ago, candidate Joe Biden loudly criticized President Donald playing cards For immigration policies that add “brutality and exclusion at every turn,” including those fleeing the “brutal” government of Venezuelan socialist Nicolás Maduro.

Now that the number is increasing, Venezuelan Arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border with the November 8 election approaching, Mr. Biden turned to a source of unlikely solutions.

Mr. Biden last week invoked a Trump-era rule known as Title 42, which Mr. Biden’s own Justice Department is up against in court, but Venezuelans fleeing the crisis-torn country are seeking asylum at the border. denying the opportunity to

The rule, which was first invoked by Trump in 2020, uses emergency public health officials to America To prevent migrants from seeking asylum at the border based on the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Under the new Biden administration’s policies, Venezuelans who walk or swim across the southern border of the United States will be deported, and Venezuelans who enter Mexico or Panama illegally will be disqualified from coming to the United States. As many as 24,000 Venezuelans will be accommodated at US airports, just as Ukrainians have been accommodated since the invasion.

Mexico is asking the US to allow one Venezuelan on humanitarian parole for every Venezuelan deported to Mexico, Mexican officials have not been empowered to publicly discuss. said on condition of anonymity.So if the Biden administration paroleed her 24,000 Venezuelans to the US, Mexico would accept no more than her 24,000 Venezuelans deported from the US.

Biden’s policies represent a sudden turn for the White House, which just weeks ago denounced Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, calling Venezuelan immigrants on buses and planes. accused the Democratic Party’s stronghold of “escaping political persecution.”

“They were children, they were mothers, they were fleeing communism,” White House Press Secretary Carine Jean-Pierre said at the time.

Biden’s new policy has drawn immediate criticism from immigration advocates, many of whom are quick to point out similarities to Trump.

Young Center policy director Jennifer Nagda said: “Rather than restore asylum rights cut by the Trump administration, the Biden administration will risk past failures and clearly enable the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants. We magnified them by doing so.” For the rights of immigrant children.

The administration says the policy aims to ensure a “legal and orderly” way for Venezuelans to enter the United States.

What is the reason for the turnaround?

More than a year after taking office in January 2021, Biden turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The center used its powers to uphold the Trump-era declaration that there is a public health risk that justifies the swift deportation of asylum seekers. .

Members of Biden’s own party and activist groups are skeptical about the public health underpinnings that would allow Title 42 to remain effective, especially when COVID-19 was spreading more widely in the U.S. than elsewhere. expressed an opinion.

After months of internal deliberation and preparation, the CDC announced on April 1 that it was ending the public health order, returning immigrants to normal border processing and giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum in the United States.

Homeland Security officials prepared for the resulting increase in border crossings.

But officials inside and outside the White House were at odds over ending the power, believing it effectively curbed the number of people crossing the border illegally, according to senior administration officials.

A May court order to retain Title 42 over challenges from Republican state officials was greeted with quiet cries of relief by some within the government, he said, to discuss internal debates. According to an official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The recent surge in Venezuelan immigration, sparked by Venezuela’s political, social and economic instability, has dashed officials’ hopes that the turmoil that defined the border region last year is finally calming down. rice field.

By August, Venezuelans were the second largest nationality to arrive at the US border after Mexicans. The situation became increasingly difficult to manage, as tensions between the United States and Venezuela prevented migrants from Venezuela from being easily sent back.

So the administration, which rejected many Trump-era policies aimed at keeping immigrants out, worked to ease the asylum process, and increased the number of refugees allowed into the United States, now holds the title I turned to 42.

If you are from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador, you brokered a deal to send Venezuelans to Mexico, which had already agreed to accept immigrants deported under Title 42.

All the while, Justice Department attorneys continue to appeal the court’s decision that upheld Title 42. They oppose more than 20 state Republican Attorneys General who have argued that Title 42 is “the only safety valve that keeps this administration’s already disastrous border control policies from spiraling into unmitigated catastrophe.”

Under Title 42, immigrants have been deported from the United States more than 2.3 million times after illegally crossing the border from Canada or Mexico, most of whom are trying to enter through Mexico.

The government has announced that beginning May 23, it will stop deporting immigrants under Title 42 and will return to detaining and deporting immigrants who are ineligible to enter and stay in the United States.

Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border said, “I am very impressed with the apparent acceptance, codification and expansion of the use of the unrelated health order, Title 42, as a basis for border policy. I feel uneasy about the “erasure of my legal right to asylum.”

Another lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union also seeks to end Title 42, potentially rendering the government’s proposal useless.

“People have 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 attorney Lee Gellert.

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Long reported from Los Angeles. His AP writer in San Diego, Elliot Spagat, contributed to this report.

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