The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Wednesday, October 12, that Joe Biden’s administration plans to return most of  Venezuelan immigrants crossing the Southern border into Mexico toward the United States.

The new border policy also aims to create possibilities to receive up to 24,000 "qualified" Venezuelans in the country.  According to the Texas Tribune, “The plan includes a joint effort by the United States and Mexico to crack down on human smuggling operations by establishing new migration checkpoints and additional resources to target trafficking operations''.

To be “qualified”, Venezuelans seeking entry into the United States will require someone agreeing to provide financial support and will need to pass background checks.

The new policy comes as the number of migrants crossing the U.S. border has increased in recent years and in the context leading up to the midterm elections next month, as immigration is often an important issue among likely Texas voters.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Venezuelans who try to cross the border without authorization will not only be returned to Mexico but will also no longer be able to apply for entry into the country.

“Due to social unrest and political turmoil, Venezuelans have been fleeing their home country in record numbers. In recent years, 7 million Venezuelans have fled, making it the largest displacement in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in the world after the Syrian exodus. Many of the Venezuelans making the 3,000-mile trek from South America to the U.S.-Mexico border face extreme environmental dangers and violence along the way”, according to the same publication.

“Federal immigration agents have recorded 2.1 million encounters at the Southwest border — a record number — in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2022, which ended Sept. 30. That’s a 24% increase from the entire previous fiscal year. According to federal government statistics, immigration agents encountered nearly 154,000 Venezuelans along the U.S.-Mexico border in the first 11 months of that fiscal year — a 216% increase from the entire previous fiscal year. The majority of encounters with Venezuelans have occurred in the El Paso and Del Rio areas”, adds the Texas Tribune.

In March 2020, the Trump administration invoked a health emergency order known as Title 42 that allows immigration agents to quickly expel illegal cross-border citizens without the act being set up as formal deportation. “But prior to Biden’s announcement on Wednesday, Venezuelans couldn’t be sent across the border under Title 42 because they’re on the list of nationalities Mexico wouldn’t accept. But Wednesday’s announcement called the new policies a joint venture between the U.S. and Mexico. Venezuelan migrants can’t be deported back to their country because the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Venezuela in 2019. Instead, they have been released to local shelters”.

In the same week, immigration agents released 6,800 migrants, many of them Venezuelans, into El Paso, a 300% weekly increase from nearly two months ago, according to El Paso’s “migrant crisis” online dashboard.

“Venezuelans have been fleeing their home country amid social unrest and political turmoil. The South American country was once one of the richest in Latin America. The United States then imposed economic sanctions on the Venezuelan government in an attempt to force President Nicolás Maduro out of power because American federal officials accused him of election fraud. Those sanctions caused the oil industry, which was the country’s economic engine, to collapse”.