USA announced Thursday that it will accept more than 30,000 migrants per month from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, thus expanding a program through which it already grants humanitarian permits to Venezuelans.
High-ranking officials of President Joe Biden’s Administration reported in a call with journalists that, in parallel, the United States will “immediately” expel Mexico to migrants who try to cross into their territory irregularly, according to a report by the agency efe.
#LAST MINUTE | The United States will accept more than 30,000 migrants a month from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, thus expanding a program for which it already grants 24,000 humanitarian permits to Venezuelans. pic.twitter.com/9ZXTlUefhB
– EFE News (@EFEnoticias) January 5, 2023
With the inclusion of Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, the program that the US launched last October is expanded to provide 24,000 permits to Venezuelan migrants and, at the same time, deport those who cross the border without permission to Mexico.
The officials explained that those who are deported for crossing the border irregularly will not be able to access humanitarian permits, nor will those who arrive “illegally” in Panama and Mexico be able to request it.
Likewise, the United States wants to triple during fiscal year 2023 “the resettlement of refugees” from other parts of the continent and will welcome up to 20,000 people from Latin American and Caribbean nations.
The southern border of the United States would be closed to Cubans soon
The officials detailed that the motivation for these measures is the “new migratory pattern” that is taking place at the border, since “political, economic and political instability around the world is fueling some of the highest levels of migration”, not seen since World War II.
In this context, the US has seen on its southern border record numbers in decades of migrants trying to cross irregularly, “motivated for the most part by a new unprecedented exodus of migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” said one of the officials. .
According to data provided by these sources, in most of December the detentions and expulsions of migrants at the southern border of the US fluctuated between 7,000 and 9,000 per day, which represents an average of 8,000 per day.
During fiscal year 2022, more than 240,000 cuban migrants They entered the United States after illegally crossing the border line that that country shares with Mexico, the Spanish agency points out.
“We are also seeing an increase in maritime migration from Cuba and Haiti, which is putting migrants in a dangerous situation,” the US sources said.
According to figures recently revealed by the United States Coast Guard, only in the recent months of October and December they were intercepted in high love more than 4000 Cuban rafters trying to reach US territory.
In this way, in just three months of the current fiscal year, more than half the number of rafters captured in the entire previous fiscal year, between October 2021 and September 2022, has already been intercepted by US ships.
Happening Now: President Biden delivers remarks on border security and enforcement. https://t.co/KrnITSO0Tw
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 5, 2023
The officials pointed out that the measures will also apply to the families of migrants and that they will be applied in collaboration with Mexico. President Biden was delivering a speech detailing the announcement.
The president will travel on Sunday to El Paso, Texas, in what would be his first visit to the southern border of the country and the next day he will visit the Mexican capital to participate in a trilateral summit with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In parallel, the US announced this Thursday that it will reinforce security on its border by hiring and deploying more agents who will join the 23,000 already working in the area.
In construction….
