The United States Should Welcome, Not Deport, Venezuelans on the Run – Orange County Register

On one occasion, specifically in October 2020, presidential candidate Joe Biden condemned what he called the “sneaky deportation” of Venezuelans through third countries by the then-president.

“It’s clear that he doesn’t care about the suffering of the Venezuelan people,” Biden said, according to the AP news agency.

Now, however, President Joe Biden is doing the same thing.

Senator Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey said: “Recent reports of the Biden administration sending Venezuelans through third countries are extremely disturbing. “By continuing to use a page from Trump’s immigration enforcement book, this administration is turning its back on immigrants who need our protection most.”

Indeed, this is unconscionable. Venezuelans are fleeing an authoritarian government that the State Department considers “an illegitimate and dictatorial regime.”

However, the Biden administration has invoked the Title 42 public health order to make it much more difficult for asylum seekers to pursue their cases and to make individuals more susceptible to deportation.

“In this case, under Title 42, we have begun repatriating Venezuelan nationals who attempted to illegally enter the United States to Colombia, where they had resided,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. former residence”.

“Ultimately, the use of Title 42 deprives them of their legal right to seek asylum and pursue their claims in the United States, and widespread use has created unsafe conditions for those seeking asylum. vulnerable migrants, increase the number of dangerous border crossings and have prevented the Biden Administration from delivering on its pledge to soon restore access to asylum,” protested Ms. Menendez.

The Biden administration must stop using this pandemic as an excuse to drive away asylum seekers and refugees. This is especially true of individuals fleeing the socialist tyranny of the Americas.

The Biden administration, to its credit, has provided temporary protective status to some Venezuelans in the country, but it will go further. Last year, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said: “Living conditions in Venezuela show a country in turmoil, unable to protect its citizens. “It is in these extraordinary and temporary circumstances that the United States moves to assist the eligible Venezuelan citizens already here, as their homeland seeks to emerge from the current crises. .”

But the administration must go further, including discontinuing Title 42 use in these cases.

Stepping back, the United States needs to show the style of leadership it did for generations before the Cuban people fled Cuba’s autocracy.