Biden Administration Expands Title 42 to Include Venezuelan Migrants
By: Anna Trillo / Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Fellow
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Venezuelan migrants who are detained crossing our southern border will be sent back to Mexico as part of the Title 42 immigrant deterrence policy. Previously, Venezuelan migrants were exempt from Title 42 deportation because they were on the list of nationalities Mexico would not accept. Since the U.S severed diplomatic ties with Venezuela in 2019, Venezuelan migrants have been released to local shelters since they could not be deported to their country of origin.
The expansion of Title 42 to include Venezuelans is another example of President Biden breaking his promise to do better than the previous administration. This expansion has the net impact of preventing thousands of Venezuelans from being able to access our asylum system. Under Biden’s new program, only 24,000 Venezuelans will be permitted to seek asylum, stranding thousands of others who will be forced back into Mexico where migrants continue to be vulnerable to victimization and exploitation, and are without any recourse to seek lawful status in the United States.
The Biden administration’s attempts to sidestep the United States’s international asylum obligations are unacceptable and NMILC stands in strong opposition to this new policy, and Title 42 expulsions altogether. We call on the Biden administration to welcome ALL asylum seekers with dignity, and not appease white nationalists with xenophobic policies such as this one.
Anna Trillo is an Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Fellow at NMILC.
Posted October 17, 2022 by Flaviano Graciano, Communications Manager