At a White House podium in May, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas outlined new legal pathways into the United States for Venezuelans and others, along with a “very clear” message for those entering illegally.
“Our borders are not open. “Individuals who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be processed and deported immediately,” he said.
On Wednesday, Mayorkas announced temporary legal status for an estimated 472,000 Venezuelans who had arrived in the country as of July 31 — including some who ignored his stern warnings and entered illegally. Circumstances are changing, but the Biden administration’s major expansion of temporary protected status could complicate its message.
Many Venezuelans will immigrate to the United States with or without the prospect of TPS, a 1990 law that authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue work permits in renewable increments of up to 18 months to people whose home countries are considered unsafe due to natural disasters Citizens’ strike.
But government critics say Mayorkas’ wide-ranging announcement will encourage other Venezuelans to try to enter the U.S. and expect warnings about rapid deportations to ring hollow and further expansion will follow.
Smugglers will seize on the message, said Chad Wolf, acting Homeland Security secretary under President Donald Trump, whose administration sought to sharply limit and reduce the use of TPS.
“There’s just going to be more and more incentive because you’re giving them the benefit that they want,” he said.
Others have a different opinion. Outside a bus station in Mexico City on Friday, Venezuelans traveling to the United States, none of whom had heard the TPS news, said conditions at home were driving them. Danny Romero, 45, showed a family photo to explain his motivations.
“The 18-year-old wants to study medicine, but how can I finance his school if I don’t have the money? I can’t ruin this dream,” said Romero, who left the northern city of Valencia in September. 2.
He came with a nephew and just a few belongings in a backpack, while his children and their mother stayed behind in Venezuela. The son, who wants to be a doctor, currently works as a hairdresser, and another, 14, sells drawings for a dollar apiece.
A political, social and economic crisis over the past decade has plunged millions of Venezuelans into poverty, with teachers, professors and public employees relying on part-time jobs or remittances from relatives abroad to make ends meet. At least 7.3 million have left the country, many risking the often difficult journey to the United States.
The announcement of the status of 472,000 Venezuelans this week was in addition to the more than 242,000 previously covered by TPS grants in 2021 and 2022.
Returning to Venezuela is uncertain “due to ongoing humanitarian, security, political and environmental conditions,” Mayorkas said.
“However, it is crucial that Venezuelans understand that those who arrived here after July 31, 2023 are not entitled to these protections and will instead be deported if they are found to have no legal basis for residency “, he said.
According to the Congressional Research Service, TPS grew under Mayorkas’ watch, covering more than 600,000 people from 16 countries by the end of March. On Thursday, the minister extended protection to an estimated 14,600 Afghans, in addition to the 3,100 who already had it.
Democratic mayors and governors have put increasing pressure on the White House to do more to help manage the migrant influx. The city of New York says 40% of the approximately 60,000 asylum seekers it houses came from Venezuela and 15,000 of them are now eligible for TPS.
More Venezuelans have been encountered at the border this month than nationals of any country other than Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures released by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Venezuelans were stopped 25,777 times in the first 17 days of September, 63% more than the same period last month. These included some people who were officially admitted to scheduled asylum appointments, but the vast majority were illegal entries.
Jeremy MacGillivray, deputy representative of the United Nations International Organization for Migration in Mexico, declined to predict the impact of the TPS expansion, but said based on previous experience: “It is likely that measures of this kind, even if positive, are encouraging.” People who are making their way.”
Smugglers sold their services by saying, “Look, President Biden announced the expansion of this measure for Venezuelans, now it’s time to come to the border,” MacGillivray said.
Pedro Luis Guerra, a Venezuelan who lived in the lobby of a Chicago police station after arriving in the city in April with his wife and young child, said TPS will be “a great help” to his family. “This is what we have wanted for so long because we came here to be successful and to work to take care of ourselves and not rely on others,” he said.
Guerra said Venezuelans are closely following news about U.S. immigration policy, but this week’s developments will not encourage more to come because “for those who arrive after July, this law does not apply, so the situation remains.” the same for them.”
But Jenny Martínez, a 39-year-old nurse whose salary has been eroded by inflation in her homeland, said conditions there are “too terrible” and Venezuelans are so desperate that many are trying to get to the U.S. independently of what she expects of the legal status.
Speaking in Mexico City across from the bus station where she was waiting to board a northbound bus with her teenage daughter and young son, Martínez said the family has been relying on her husband’s remittances for the past 18 months Utah, and now they are “I hope I can join him there.”
“The (Venezuelan) government gives you this minimum wage, and what do you do with it? Nothing,” she said. “Venezuelans will definitely try to enter, with or without papers. “This is about crossing the border to be able to work, to be able to send money to your grandparents.”
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