Venezuelan migrants denounce separation of couples on the border between Mexico and the US.

The new border policy between the United States and Mexico is separating families of Venezuelan migrants, denounced several of those affected interviewed by Reuters.

Some women indicated that they were separated from their husbands in recent days, after being deported to Mexican territory, while their partners were admitted to the United States.

“I am alone in a country where I have no one to help me (…) He was my only companion, my only help, my only support,” said Angélica Ramírez while fighting back tears in an interview near the border wall in Ciudad Juárez , Mexico, contemplating how to return to Venezuela without money.

Ramírez assured that she had traveled for two months with her husband before entering the border city of El Paso, Texas, on Monday, October 10, but he was allowed to stay in US territory while she was sent back to Mexico, on Thursday, October 13. A measure that she described as “inexplicable”.

Luis Cazorla, 27, said he arrived at the El Paso border wall on Monday, October 10, with his wife, Katherine Carantona, 29.

Once detained in the United States, they were separated and lost contact for two days. When they spoke again, he had been allowed her entry to US soil, but he was surprised to learn that she had been deported to Mexico. “They separated us so unfairly,” Cazorla emphasized.

A mother also stated that she was separated from her 20-year-old son after he was allowed to stay and she was expelled shortly after crossing the land border.

The US Department of Homeland Security has not commented on this case. However, experts say U.S. border agents don’t treat couples and parents with adult children as “family units,” so those people may be processed separately.

About 200 Venezuelans who crossed overland into the United States were expelled last Thursday, October 13, to Ciudad Juárez, according to the human rights group Jesuit Refugee Service.

For their part, US officials indicated that 300 people had been expelled across the US border on Wednesday, October 12.

These are the first cases of deportations that are known since last Wednesday, October 12, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that as of that same day the authorities began to deport Venezuelan migrants who arrived in its border irregularly.

The expulsions are carried out under Title 42, a public health decree created at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic promoted during the government of former President Donald Trump.

“Effective immediately, Venezuelans who enter the United States between ports of entry, without authorization, will be returned to Mexico,” the DHS announced in a statement.

Until last week, Venezuelans who arrived on US soil had humanitarian parole, a mechanism that allowed them to remain in that nation to request asylum. Now that arrangement has changed.

The rules have been modified amid the sharp increase in arrivals of Venezuelan citizens to the US from the border with Mexico.

Washington says it is seeking an orderly migration, similar to the one it has arranged for Ukrainians fleeing the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The new way authorized by the US to receive Venezuelan migrants

Simultaneously, the Joe Biden government reported that it is opening a legal channel to receive up to 24,000 people from the South American nation, strongly affected by a political and economic crisis.

What does it consist of? Venezuelans who aspire to a residence permit must demonstrate from their country of origin that they have a sponsor in the United States. That is, a person capable of providing them with “financial and other support”.

The officials will examine case by case and those who are admitted will obtain an authorization to travel by air to the United States. Once there they can apply for a work permit.

Those who have been deported from the US in the last five years, who entered Panama or Mexico irregularly, or who try to cross the US border without authorization will not be able to access the program.

However, many of those who have undertaken the arduous journey by land from their home nation say the news hit them like a bucket of cold water. They affirm that not all the people affected by the acute crisis in Venezuela have the possibility of complying with the requirements. Among them are difficulties in acquiring a passport.

“The Venezuelan passport is practically a relic for everyone here. It is very difficult to find it and whoever has it has already expired because they charge to even take your fingerprints, take your picture,” said Venezuelan migrant Auri Soto.

Numerous human rights groups have said they are disappointed by changes under the new policy that they say unfairly differentiate based on nationality and expand the use of a US removal order that limits access to asylum.

Gretchen Kuhner, director of a migrant women’s defense group in Mexico, said that the current situation on the border between the United States and Mexican territory is “chaotic.”

Millions of Venezuelans have left their country in recent years, fleeing corruption, economic hardship and political turmoil. Those who walk to the United States have an arduous route through Central America and then on to Mexico.

More than 150,000 citizens from that nation have been caught crossing the US-Mexico border. This year, according to data from the Joe Biden government, a sharp increase that they maintain has exhausted US resources on the border line and in receiving cities.

Some of the deported Venezuelans urged other migrants not to undertake the journey to avoid the same result. However, a caravan of hundreds of people left southern Mexico in the early hours of Friday, October 14, hoping to reach the United States.

With Reuters and EFE