In a historic shift in migration trends, nearly 67,000 Venezuelans crossed the southern US border last month - 82% of them illegally - surpassing Mexicans as the largest single nationality attempting to enter the Untied States, Axios reports.
After the Biden administration gave migrants the green light, reversing several Trump-era initiatives to secure the border, Venezuelans fled deteriorating economic and safety conditions as well as political instability in order to push north into the United States.
What's more, Biden's limitations on the ability to deport Venezuelans mean migrants are essentially home free once they make it across the border, hence the current crisis. Criminal smuggling networks have also been thriving and growing more sophisticated, per Axios.
- More than a quarter of a million crossed in fiscal year of 2023, which saw an all-time record number of migrants attempting to cross the southern border either illegally or at ports of entry through an app and Biden's new parole programs.
- The number of migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the border illegally was slightly down from last year's record-breaking number, however.
- More could be on the way: Nearly 59,000 Venezuelans crossed the dangerous jungles of the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama last month, according to Panamanian statistics.
Last week the Biden administration eased sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas sector after President Nicolás Maduro's representatives joined with the opposition party in signing onto a plan for presidential elections in 2024, Axios continues.
The efforts to increase Venezuelan deportations came shortly after the Biden administration expanded Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans who were in the U.S. as of the end of July, granting them permission to legally live and work in the country for 18 months.
Meanwhile, US officials resumed the deportation of Venezuelans for the first time in several years.