Venezuelans Get a Raw Deal

And Title 42 Gets Even More Perverse

Hello, all! I’m thrilled to see so many new subscribers to Tales of Humanity from the Borderlands, where I aim to send sneak peeks of my forthcoming book, CROSSING THE LINE (Nov 2023), to your inbox at least twice each month along with stories and news that chronicle issues in global migration.

Today, we’ll start with the latter, followed by an exclusive invitation…

More than 100 Million people are displaced and on the move in the world today. That’s an unprecedented number and likely only to escalate on our increasingly warming planet. Yet, rather than raise humanitarian alarm bells that spur creative, compassionate thinking, nations are instead raising higher, thicker, deadlier, and more bureaucratic walls.

This is no less true in the Americas, where Venezuelans have joined those currently on the run from economic turmoil and political repression. And last week the Biden administration offered them a very raw deal, indeed.

It’s like Title 42 and Remain in Mexico (RMX) all rolled up into one. 

If you’d like to learn more about how Title 42, an obscure section of the US public health code, and Remain in Mexico have been abused since the Trump administration to end the right to asylum in the US and halt northward migration, click on the highlighted links above…

Now, one of the reasons the recent Venezuelan migration has been so different is that Venezuela has little history of sending refugees to US shores. Only Venezuelan elites have fled their country, largely when Hugo Chavez was president (1999-2013.) These folks could afford to fly to their second homes in London, Paris, Miami, or Madrid. So, those now traveling over land to get to safety in the US have no family or friends — no “sponsors” — to go to.

That’s why batshit crazy governors like Abbot (R-TX), Ducey (R-AZ), and DeSantis (R-FL) have brazenly turned these asylum seekers into pawns in their own political chess games.

But the Biden Administration is not at liberty to simply shackle the Venezuelan newcomers, put them on outbound planes, and expel them back to the harms they fled under its continued abuse of Title 42. The reason? Because the US does not currently have diplomatic relations with the government of Nicolás Maduro Moros. So Biden cut a new raw deal with President Lopez Obrador (AMLO) of Mexico.

Until now, Mexico has only accepted victims of Title 42 if they are from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador. As of last week, AMLO agreed to take in all Venezuelans the US lobs back over the southern border as well.

This represents an extension of Title 42 — a mutation of US law that Biden promised to repeal if he won the presidency. Under his Title 42 extension, the US can force Venezuelans to Remain in Mexico.

But Mexico is only granting them the right to remain for a matter of days! 

That’s right. Venezuelans sent back to Mexico are told they must leave via a southern port of entry, which means Guatemala or Belize. Some are given 7 days, others 15. It’s rather arbitrary and definitely chaotic. And speaking of arbitrary and chaotic — how does the US decide which Venezuelans get the golden ticket to advance north, and which do not?

We don’t know! It’s totally random! 

For example, a couple might arrive together in Laredo, TX. They will get separated by virtue of gender and placed into different processing centers. One may get released to a bus waiting to go to New York or DC or Chicago, while the other is bused — often unawares — back over the line into Mexico. Now the family is separated, with one forced to head in a southerly direction and get out of Mexico in the next 7 or 15 days!

Meanwhile, the Biden camp has created a “right way” for as many as 24,000 Venezuelans to migrate to the US based on the model they put in place for Ukrainians fleeing war: They can apply for refuge through a “supporter” in the US.

Like an asylum “sponsor,” the supporter must agree to take financial responsibility for the person seeking refuge. One can only apply for US admission once a supporter has been identified, vetted, and approved. And if the door of safety is cracked open, they must fly in, which means they must have the means to purchase a plane ticket and a passport. Passports currently cost Venezuelans $200 per person — that’s 10x the country’s current monthly minimum wage.

An estimated 6.8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since the economy tanked in 2014. The vast majority are being hosted by Colombia, but they can be found throughout the Americas. Mexico, under pressure from the Biden administration, introduced restrictions on air travel to limit Venezuelan migration last January, pushing folks in unprecedented numbers to come north through the treacherous, perilous, often deadly Darién Gap — another example of why “deterrence through cruelty” simply does not work. Those currently en route will hit the border wall that is now the Title 42 extension for Venezuelans and find themselves stuck because the so-called Unite for Ukraine equivalent for Venezuelans went into immediate effect last week when these folks were neck-deep in mud.

What happens when the people expelled by the US under its abuse of Title 42 and now heading south meet their fellow countrymen and women coming out of the Panamanian jungle?

A glut of humanity, that’s what. What happens to all of them then? 

We must urge our president, vice-president, and members of Congress, as Human Rights First and other sensible organizations have done, to immediately stop using Title 42 as a migration control and restore access to fair, orderly, and humane asylum processes at US ports of entry, regardless of nationality, pre-existing ties in the US, or other factors. Rather than deny refugees the right to seek asylum guaranteed under US and international law, we must rebuild and strengthen the capacity of the US Refugee Admissions Program, decimated under Trump, to process refugees from Venezuela and other countries! 

Tell your Members of Congress: #CrueltyIsNotOkay. Ya basta!

And now for your exclusive invitation…

Join me for the first in a series of monthly Zoom readings from CROSSING THE LINE, followed by Q&A. The first will take place on November 9 at 4 pm ET.

Register your interest via email or in the comments section below and I will make sure you get a formal registration link as soon as it’s live next week.

Hope to see you then!
Best and more,
Sarah