WASHINGTON — The number of Venezuelans who illegally crossed the southwestern border in the United States in the past week has decreased significantly since the Biden administration announced policies targeting the influx, administration officials said late Friday.
The new policies, announced last week, subject more of the Venezuelan migrants to expulsion and establish a narrow legal pathway for thousands of others to temporarily stay in the country. The initiatives were rolled out with the hope of reducing the number of illegal border crossings, which have reached record levels during the Biden administration. Republicans have said President Biden’s immigration policies are to blame for the spike in illegal crossings.
An overwhelming number of Venezuelans trying to escape poverty and political instability have been making their way in the past year to the United States. Most were being released into the country temporarily to face deportation proceedings in immigration court; Washington cannot repatriate them because of strained diplomatic relations with Caracas.
Last week, before the administration announced the new policies, about 1,200 Venezuelans a day crossed the southwestern border illegally, officials said. In recent days, that number has dropped to about 150 Venezuelans a day. The administration officials spoke on condition of anonymity on Friday to describe the early results of the program.
The steep and immediate drop in the number of illegal crossings was good news for the Biden administration as it tries to deflect Republican attacks ahead of the midterm elections. But immigration advocates who campaigned for Mr. Biden in 2020 have been critical of the measures the administration put in place for Venezuelans, which expanded its use of a Trump-era public health rule that was put in place at the beginning of the pandemic and gives border officials the authority to quickly expel migrants who cross the border illegally, even those seeking asylum.
Under the new expulsion policy, Venezuelans who cross the border illegally will be expelled to Mexico.
“At its core, the Biden administration remains focused on deporting asylum seekers back to danger, and outsourcing its obligations to Mexico,” Oscar Chacón, executive director of the Alianza Americas advocacy group, said in a statement last week. “This is another example of a Biden immigration policy that suffers a bad case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: From one angle, it looks humanitarian, but from another, it is ugly and abusive.”
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The administration promised to grant humanitarian parole for up to 24,000 qualifying Venezuelans in a program that is similar to what has been offered to Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion, though that is on a much larger scale — there is no cap to how many Ukrainians can apply. Those who receive humanitarian parole are given permission to stay in the United States for two years as well as authorization to work. Venezuelans who were already in the country and facing deportation proceedings are not eligible for the parole program.
So far, the Department of Homeland Security has approved 150 of the applications it received for humanitarian parole, one official said. Officials did not say how many Venezuelans have applied so far.
More than 6.8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2015, escaping poverty and political instability, according to the United Nations. Most went to other South American countries.
In the past year, more than 150,000 Venezuelans crossed the southwestern U.S. border after a dangerous and deadly trek through the Darién Gap in Panama and up through Central America and Mexico. Many are hoping for asylum. Officials on Friday said the number of Venezuelans going through the Darién Gap has decreased as well since the new policies were announced.
The spike in illegal migration at the southwestern border is part of a global movement during a time when there are more displaced people around the world than ever before.
The Biden administration has released more than one million immigrants, including Venezuelans, into the country pending removal proceedings in immigration court, which can take years. The administration has expelled illegal border crossers nearly two million times since Mr. Biden has been in office, including migrants who traveled to the United States in search of asylum, which they have a legal right to request.
For months, the Republican governors of Arizona and Texas have been busing some migrants released from custody on the border to Democratic enclaves, mostly along the East Coast — primarily Washington, D.C., and New York. Both cities have struggled to meet the needs of so many migrants. Mayors of both of those cities have declared emergencies, moves that do little to tamp down Republican allegations that the illegal crossings along the southwestern border are out of control.
Administration officials on Friday said that the decrease in Venezuelans crossing the border illegally has been a relief to some of the cities along the southwestern border as well as Washington and New York.
