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In just four months of the fiscal year, Border Patrol authorities detained 10,864 Venezuelans in the city of Del Rio (Texas), on the border of the Rio Grande River in the United States. A figure that far exceeds the 135 who arrived in the city during the whole of last year.
A report by The Epoch Times revealed that many Venezuelans flew from Venezuela to Cancun and then to Monterrey to later cross the Rio Grande on foot. Others arrived by land from Colombia.
According to testimonies gathered, a large part of the Venezuelans intend to live in Florida where, apparently, they already have relatives.
According to Dallas News, “Venezuelans generally make it across the border at Del Rio, where they can apply for asylum. But Central Americans are being turned back.”
The increase in migrants fleeing the humanitarian crisis in their country comes after the Biden-Harris administration announced on March 8 the granting of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Venezuelans already in the United States, which would allow close to 320,000 people to apply to live and work legally in the U.S. for a period of 18 months.
In relation to TPS, this Monday, June 7, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that thousands of people living in the country for humanitarian reasons cannot apply for permanent residency.
“The Temporary Protected Status program grants aliens non-immigrant status, but does not admit them. So the grant does not make an unlawful entrant eligible,” Justice Elena Kagan ruled.
However, the court decision does not affect immigrants with TPS who entered the United States legally and then overstayed when their visa expired. This is because those individuals were lawfully admitted to the country and then received humanitarian protection.
“They’ll begin deporting Venezuelans”
Maria Herrera Mellado, an immigration lawyer told El American that “since two weeks ago specifically, the ‘deporters’ at the Immigration Headquarters in Washington D. C. informed us lawyers that, indeed, they’ll begin deporting Venezuelans.”
Herrera Mellado explained that many Venezuelans think that when they arrive in the United States they cannot be deported and this is not the case. Both TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) are for Venezuelans who were already in the United States before the measures were approved.
The attorney points out that Venezuelans who cross the border illegally, and who do not qualify for asylum, would be deported.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo