Biden administration to resume US deportation flights for Venezuelan migrants as arrivals grow

Repatriation flights are expected to begin shortly, ITV News' US Correspondent Dan Rivers reports

The US is going to resume deporting Venezuelan migrants who cross the US-Mexico border, back to their economically troubled country as arrivals continue to rise.

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the new measure is one of the “strict consequences” the Biden administration is pairing with the expansion of legal pathways for asylum seekers.

“Our two countries are being challenged by an unprecedented level of migration throughout our hemisphere,” Mayorkas said, referring to Mexico.

Repatriation flights are expected to begin shortly, said two US officials, though they did not provide specific details on when the flights would begin taking off.

The resumption of deportation flights comes not long after the administration increased protected status for thousands of Venezuelans who had previously arrived to the US - they must have entered the country before July 31 of this year to be eligible for temporary protected status.

President Joe Biden's administration said that “extraordinary and temporary conditions continue to prevent Venezuelan nationals from returning in safety.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who led a US delegation to Mexico, added that “we have an ironclad commitment to provide protection for those who qualify. That remains paramount in everything we’re doing.”

How have the plans been received?

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service criticised the move to resume deportations noting the apparent contradiction with the expansion of temporary protected status.

“Returning thousands of Venezuelans to the same unimaginably dangerous conditions they just fled is a profoundly problematic policy for the world’s humanitarian leader to adopt,” the organisation’s ceo Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said in a statement.

Administration officials would not discuss details about how frequently deportation flights would be going to Venezuela.

Cuba announced earlier this year that it would begin accepting Cuban deportees but there has only been one flight a month.

The US had been returning some Venezuelans via commercial flights, but in relatively small numbers and through third countries.

In Venezuela, the government said it had reached an agreement with US officials for a safe and orderly repatriation.

“Venezuelan migration in recent years is a direct result of the application of unilateral coercive measures and a blockade of our economy,” Venezuela's foreign ministry said via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

It comes after the US government has come under increased pressure from Republicans and Democrats to do more to slow arrivals.

Blinken and other top Biden administration officials also met with their counterparts in Mexico City on security issues.

Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena said that some 10,000 migrant encounters were registered at the US-Mexico border on Wednesday.

“We are going to continue taking forceful actions, including continuing some efforts we already have in relation to assisted returns, coordinating the dismantling of trafficking networks and human trafficking,” Bárcena said.

Blinken said the US government is working to support those efforts.

In August, the US Border Patrol made 181,509 arrests at the Mexican border, up 37% from July but little changed from August 2022 and well below the more than 220,000 in December, according to figures released in September.

Migration has increased despite US efforts

The US has tried to get Mexico and countries farther south to do more. In April, the US, Panama and Colombia announced a campaign to slow migration through the treacherous Darien Gap dividing Colombia and Panama.

But migration through the jungle has only accelerated and is expected to approach some 500,000 people this year - the vast majority from Venezuela.

Venezuelans were stopped 25,777 times the first 17 days of September, up 63% from the same period a month earlier.

Those included some people admitted for scheduled asylum appointments, but the vast majority were illegal entries.

Why are people travelling from Venezuela?

Venezuela plunged into a political, economic and humanitarian crisis over the last decade, pushing at least 7.3 million people to migrate and making food and other necessities unaffordable for those who remain.

The vast majority who fled settled in neighbouring countries in Latin America, but many began coming to the United States in the last three years.

Deportation flights had been paused in part because the US has few diplomatic relations with the nation.

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