Venezuelan migrants, expelled from the US and sent back to Mexico under Title 42, stand outside the office of the Center for Integral Attention to Migrants (CAIM) in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Oct. 14, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
MEXICO CITY/CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Oct 14 (Reuters) – A new U.S.-Mexico border policy aimed at preventing Venezuelans fleeing hardship in their home country from entering the United States illegally has separated some families, migrants said on Monday. Friday, with several women known to have been sent back to Mexico while their husbands remained in the United States.
The separations of at least three couples, as well as a mother who returned without her 20-year-old son, came during some of the first expulsions of Venezuelans from the United States back to Mexico under a policy announced by officials in both countries on Wednesday.
Under the policy, up to 24,000 Venezuelans can apply for humanitarian entry into the United States by air. US officials have said they will return Venezuelans who try to enter the land border.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
About 200 Venezuelans who crossed overland to the United States were expelled on Thursday to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, according to the rights group Jesuit Migrant Services. Read also : What would happen to Russia without the United States and Europe? – OpEd. US officials told Reuters that 300 were expelled from the United States across the border the previous day.
Prior to Wednesday, Venezuelans who had crossed into the United States illegally, many seeking asylum in the United States, were often allowed to stay because it was difficult to send them back to Venezuela or Mexico.
“I’m alone in a country where I don’t have anyone to help me,” said Angelica Ramirez, who traveled for two months with her husband before entering the border city of El Paso, Texas, on Monday.
Ramirez said her husband was allowed to stay in the United States while she was sent back on Thursday, a move she called “inexplicable”.
“He was my only companion, my only help, my only support,” Ramirez said, fighting back tears in an interview near the border wall in Ciudad Juarez, wondering how to get back to Venezuela without money or a cell phone.
Ramirez said his two children, ages 2 and 8, remain in Venezuela.
Venezuelans by the millions have left the South American country in recent years, fleeing corruption, economic hardship and political upheaval. Those who walk overland towards the United States have an arduous route through Central America and then on to Mexico.
Gretchen Kuhner, director of an advocacy group for migrant women in Mexico, said the current situation at the US-Mexico border is chaotic.
Several advocacy groups said they were disappointed by changes to the new policy, which they say unfairly differentiate based on nationality and expand the use of a US expulsion order that limits access to asylum.
Luis Cazorla, 27, said he arrived at the El Paso border wall on Monday with his wife Katherine Carantona, 29.
Once detained in the US, they were separated and lost contact for two days, he said. When they spoke again, he was given permission to enter the United States and said he was shocked to learn that she had been sent back to Mexico.
“They separated us so unfairly,” Cazorla said.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to questions about the separated Venezuelans. US border agents don’t treat couples and parents with adult children as “family units,” so it’s possible these people could be prosecuted separately.
More than 150,000 Venezuelans have been caught crossing the US-Mexico border this year, according to US government data, a sharp increase that has strained US resources at the border and in receiving cities.
Some of the Venezuelans sent to Mexico have urged other migrants to stay where they are to avoid the same outcome, even as a caravan of hundreds of people left southern Mexico on Friday.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City, Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Will Dunham
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. See the article : Mexico to extend talks with the United States on energy, hails the “productive” dialogue..
