MEXICO CITY (AP) – In a shelter on the east side of Mexico City, Venezuelan mechanic José Cuicas anxiously awaits an American friend to respond to his request to sponsor him for one of the 24,000 visas the Biden administration says it will give to Venezuelans.
Cuicas was one of approximately 1,700 Venezuelans US authorities deported to Mexico last week under an agreement between the two nations to deny Venezuelans the right to US asylum and try to prevent them from arriving at the border. Many of them were then transported by bus to the capital to relieve pressure on Mexico’s already saturated border towns.
The new policy came in response to a significant increase in the number of Venezuelans arriving at the border. Now they are second only to Mexicans among the nationalities that cross it.
READ MORE: A small town in southern Mexico unexpectedly hosts thousands of migrants
Since Cuicas was deported on October 13, shortly before the official launch of the visa plan this week, he is eligible to apply for a visa under the program. Venezuelans who apply online, find a US sponsor, and meet other requirements could then fly directly to the US if a visa is issued.
On Friday, US and Mexican officials provided the first update on the program: 7,500 applications were being processed and the first 100 Venezuelans had been allowed to fly. Biden administration officials said around 150 Venezuelans were crossing the border from Mexico each day, up from around 1,200 before the policy was announced on October 12.
“My dream is to be there (in the US) to make a new life,” said Cuicas, a 31-year-old who left behind his wife and two small children. Return is not an option, he said. “There is no future, there is no work”.
While Cuicas is optimistic about his chances of enrolling in the US program, observers have pointed out that the number of visas offered is miniscule compared to the demand. In September alone, the US Customs and Border Protection reported more than 33,000 encounters with Venezuelans at the border.
For Venezuelans already en route to the US-Mexico border, the announcement came as a shock. For some like Cuicas there was still hope of legally entering the United States, but for others it added new uncertainty to what was a months or even years long migration.
In Mexico City, groups of Venezuelans circulate between shelters, a bus terminal on the north side of the city and the offices of the Mexican asylum agency, where about 30 have slept on the street, waiting to start paperwork.
READ MORE: Changing US policy on Venezuelan migrants adds further tension to shelters in Mexico
Darío Arévalo found himself separated from his family for the first time in his life and lived in a shelter. For reasons he said he had not been granted, US authorities in the border town of El Paso, Texas allowed six members of his family to enter, but sent him back to Mexico.
The 20-year-old is learning to live alone and is thinking of returning to Venezuela, a country struggling with economic and political crises that have expelled over 7 million people from the country.
“This is the first time I have separated from them, that I am alone,” he said. He will try to raise enough money to return to Venezuela, a place he hasn’t lived in for four years since his family emigrated to Pereira, neighboring Colombia.
A Venezuelan migrant plays with his child at the Cafemin shelter, in Mexico City, October 21, 2022. Photo by Raquel Cunha / REUTERS
Although Venezuela finally came out of more than four years of hyperinflation last year, it still suffers from one of the highest inflation in the world and its economy continues to be precarious. The poor have little purchasing power, which has spurred another wave of migration.
The original exodus began in 2015, when thousands of people fled the worst political, economic and social crisis the oil-producing country had seen in more than a century.
Prior to the announcement of the deal affecting Venezuelans last week, Mexico was willing to accept only migrants from some Central American countries expelled from the United States.
The Biden administration is expanding an authority used during the Trump administration to prevent migrants arriving at the border from seeking asylum by deporting them under a public health ordinance known as Title 42 that was used during the COVID pandemic. -19.
Outside the offices of the Mexican asylum agency in Mexico City, Jonathan Castellanos, 29, is one of the Venezuelans who slept on the sidewalk after being deported from the United States. He said his mother and three children have returned to Venezuela, but he has no plans to return.
After living for six years in Chile and Colombia, he emigrated north and arrived at the border with Texas at the end of September. He was deported last week along with 95 other Venezuelans.
Castellanos said Mexican authorities have already granted him a humanitarian permit that will allow him to look for a job and a place to live, joining the approximately 140,000 Venezuelans who now live in Mexico.
Cuicas, on the other hand, said he would not apply for asylum in Mexico because he feared it would hurt his chances of obtaining a US visa.
Castellanos said he doesn’t have time for that. “My dream is to get to the United States, but I didn’t succeed. … Life goes on and I can’t stop, ”he said. “I have to go on and find a way to work, to produce to help my children in Venezuela”.
