US Warns Venezuelan Migrants Not to Try to Cross the Border

Fabiola Zerpa and Nicolle Yapur
·1 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- A Biden administration official said thousands of Venezuelans crossing Central America to try to reach the US should stop where they are or risk getting turned away at the border.

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“For those who are on the move, I want to tell them to stay where they are. Do not try to enter Mexico and do not try to cross our border,” said Blas Nunez-Neto, acting assistant US Homeland Security secretary for border and immigration policy.

Nunez-Neto spoke to the media a day after President Joseph Biden announced new rules aimed at deterring Venezuelans from crossing illegally. The US said it would return to Mexico those who cross the border without documentation under a restriction known as Title 42. A humanitarian program is also being established that provides a legal pathway to the US for Venezuelans who have a financial sponsor, though it is currently capped at 24,000.

Venezuelans are traveling through Central America -- including a dangerous jungle in Panama -- in record numbers to escape an economy that has collapsed at home. More than 180,000 Venezuelans have crossed the US-Mexico border in the fiscal year, Nunez-Neto said, a massive increase from a year earlier.

While many are headed to the US to seek asylum, Nunez-Neto said the pandemic-era Title 42 rule, instituted to stop the spread of Covid-19, supersedes that right.

“At the moment we are under a judicial obligation to implement the authority of Title 42, which is public health, and that authority has priority,” he said. “That means that individuals who cross illegally do not have the right to seek asylum and can be returned to Mexico.”

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