Back in 2016, then-candidate Joe Biden vehemently criticized President Donald Trump's immigration policy, notably his treatment of people fleeing the "brutal" socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
As the election on November 8 draws near, more and more Venezuelans are arriving at the border between the United States and Mexico. Biden has now turned to an unlikely source for help: the playbook of his predecessor.
Last week, Biden used a Trump-era regulation known as Title 42 to prevent Venezuelans fleeing their crisis-torn nation from requesting asylum at the border. Biden's own Justice Department is currently challenging this rule in court.
According to the regulation, which was first used by Trump in 2020, the United States is able to prevent migrants from applying for asylum at the border by using emergency public health authority. This is done in order to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
According to the new Biden administration policy, Venezuelans who swim or walk across the southern border of the United States will be deported, and anyone from Venezuela who enters Mexico or Panama illegally will not be permitted to enter the country. However, up to 24,000 Venezuelans will be allowed to enter U.S. airports, just as Ukrainians have since Russia's invasion in February.
According to a Mexican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak to the media about the situation, Mexico has insisted that the United States admit one Venezuelan on humanitarian parole for every Venezuelan it expels to Mexico. Therefore, Mexico would only accept 24,000 Venezuelans who were expelled from the United States if the Biden administration paroles 24,000 Venezuelans to the country.
The Biden policy is a sharp change for the White House, which only a few weeks ago was criticizing Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for sending refugees from Venezuela "fleeing political persecution" on buses and planes bound for Democratic strongholds.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre remarked at the time that "they were children, they were mothers, and they were fleeing communism."
Immigrant rights activists criticized Biden's new approach right away, and many of them were ready to draw comparisons to Trump.
According to Jennifer Nagda, policy director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, "instead of restoring the right to asylum decimated by the Trump administration... the Biden administration has dangerously embraced the failures of the past and expanded upon them by explicitly enabling the expulsion of Venezuelan migrants."
According to the administration, the goal of the program is to provide Venezuelans with a "lawful and orderly" means of entering the country.
Biden deferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more than a year after entering office in January 2021, which used its power to maintain the Trump-era decree that a public health danger existed that called for the expedited expulsion of asylum seekers.
The public health justifications for keeping Title 42 in place have drawn criticism from activists and members of Biden's own party, especially at a time when COVID-19 was spreading more rapidly in the United States than anywhere else.
The CDC said on April 1 that it would withdraw the public health order and resume regular border processing of migrants, allowing them a chance to apply for asylum in the United States after months of internal debates and planning.
Officials in charge of Homeland Security prepared anticipated an uptick in border crossings as a result.
However, according to senior administration sources, officials both inside and outside the White House were split on ending the power since they thought it effectively reduced the number of people crossing the border illegally.
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