The US emphasizes that its new program will only apply to Venezuelans who enter legally

one day after announce a program that will give access to the country to 24,000 Venezuelan immigrants, the United States government stressed on Thursday that it will proceed to return to Mexico those immigrants who try to cross illegally through the southern border.

“Those who attempt to illegally cross the southern border of the United States will be turned back. Those who continue to the legal process that we announced yesterday will have the opportunity to travel safely to the United States and be eligible to work here,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Thursday.

Mayorkas made the statements in the framework of the second dialogue on Security between the US and Mexico, held in Washington DC.

Reactions from the US and Venezuela

After the announcement, politicians from Venezuela and the United States reacted positively, seeing it as an alternative to the humanitarian crisis that Venezuelans are experiencing, although they also expressed their criticism.

The ambassador of the interim government of Venezuela to the US, Carlos Vecchio, recognized the management of President Joe Biden, however, he described it as having little scope.

“24,000 visas is insufficient for the magnitude of the problem. A reconsideration is necessary in this regard,” said the diplomat.

The Democratic senator from New Jersey, Rober Menéndez, said in a statement that although it is correct to apply the visa model similar to the United for Ukraine, “I cannot support any program that creates additional requirements for Venezuelans” and concluded that “this program creates an automatic disqualification for Venezuelans who have risked their lives to find temporary refuge in Panama and Mexico.”

immediate expulsions

On Wednesday, the White House announced that its visa program for citizens of Venezuela would take effect immediately, therefore, the expulsions began on the same date.

This Thursday media such as the American chain foxnews and Mexican newspapers like The universal they shared Videos where allegedly Venezuelan citizens can be seen being handed over by the Border Patrol to the National Migration Institute of Mexico at the intersection of the border crossing between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras.

With the new regulations, people do not need to be in Venezuela to access this process, a senior official explained when announcing the measure on Wednesday. “We anticipate that there will be Venezuelans who, some who are in Venezuela, but others who have fled the country for a variety of different reasons, who may seek to take advantage of this process and can fly from where they are, without having to continue making the dangerous journey to USA”.

To qualify for such benefit, the applicants will be processed by a sponsor in the US who proves through their economic status that they will not be a public charge.

In a call with the press on Thursday, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Blas Núñez-Neto, said in response to the voice of americathat neither for the sponsors nor for the applicants the process has no cost and that sometimes, cases within the program for Ukrainians –established at the beginning of the Russian invasion to provide relief to those fleeing the conflict – have taken only a week.

Possible expansion to other countries

Núñez-Neto reported that the number of unique encounters between authorities and Venezuelans who have arrived in the US through the southwest border in the last year has increased by more than 180,000.

In addition, he reported that since April the number of Venezuelans arriving in Panama through Colombia “has increased more than thirty times and continues to grow.”

The estimate, said the senior official, of those who arrive in Panama each day “mostly Venezuelans” is 30,000 people.

To a question about whether the White House plans to implement such a measure for other nations, he explained: “This program is for Venezuelans and only Venezuelans, but we are going to be closely reviewing how effective the program is and if it works, we are going to start a process to review if it can be extended as well.

​Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.