On Wednesday evening, US President Joe Biden’s administration announced that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants already in US territory can live and work legally in the country. The measure affects about 472,000 Venezuelans who arrived in the United States before July 31 and will last 18 months. About 110,000 of these people live in New York State.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, justified the decision by saying that the current situation in Venezuela would not allow these people to return “safely”. In a joint statement, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives, said the decision “will also help reduce costs associated with asylum seeker housing policies borne by New York taxpayers be worn”. ” In January, Biden’s administration announced a plan to allow 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to legally enter the United States every month for two years.
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