Joe Biden's administration is pressuring Mexico behind closed doors to accept more migrants from three particular nationalities, Reuters reported citing US and Mexican officials.
Furthermore, amid escalating numbers of crossings into the US by migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the White House is seeking to have them expelled under the COVID-19 health order, known as Title 42, according to the sources.
The White House publicly sought to scrap Title 42, first invoked by Donald Trump when he was president, and allowing border authorities to turn migrants back to Mexico or their home country because of the pandemic. Some Democrats have supported Biden’s intention to roll back the “inhumane Trump policy", claiming there was "no public health benefit to sending asylum seekers back to harm". However, a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the Biden administration from ditching the order earlier this year.
Despite Biden’s “open-borders mentality”, as Republicans describe his dogged insistence on undoing everything former President Donald Trump had done, behind the scenes some Biden officials are reportedly singing a different tune. They still rely on expanded expulsions as a means of deterring illegal crossers, one US official said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue of migrants from the three specific countries during a visit on 12 September to Mexico City, but Mexico stopped short of promising any specific actions, the report claimed.
Trying to convince Mexico to shoulder the burden was said to be "an uphill battle" by one of the cited sources.
‘Shuffling Of’ Responsibility
At present, Mexico accepts US returns of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with an estimated 299,000 people from those nations so far expelled at the border this fiscal year. As for migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the number was significantly smaller - about 9,000 returns. Most arrivals from these three states who cross into the US are allowed to stay to pursue asylum claims.
Overall, this fiscal year has already seen US border agents make a record 1.8Mln migrant arrests at the south-west border, with nearly a quarter of the migrants apprehended hailing from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Mexico is reluctant to take in Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans expelled from the United States because those countries resist accepting deportation flights from Mexico, according to what Mexican officials told Reuters. Bearing in mind the “frosty” relations that Washington has maintained with the three nations in question, it is reportedly trying its utmost to relinquish a major part of the burden of returning these arrivals.
Instead of agreeing to the Biden team’s pressures, Mexico opts to step up internal flights of migrants from its northern border to its southern border, an insider revealed. This maneuver is ostensibly viewed as relieving the burden on the shared frontier.
Furthermore, Mexico is said to have indicated it would like the US to ease economic sanctions against Venezuela. This, according to sources, might serve the dual purpose of stemming the exodus from Venezuela and making it easier for migrants to work legally in the United States.
Biden officials are also said to be mulling how to shoulder the responsibility of the migrant burden to other nations beyond Mexico, according to the report.
Panama is being explored as a destination for deported Venezuelans if they pass through that Central American nation on their way to the US, two American officials said.
There has not been any official comment on the report from Mexico's Foreign Ministry or the Panamanian government officials.
A White House National Security Council spokesman declined to comment on "diplomatic conversations", adding that nations in the region "have already begun to take collective responsibility to manage migration flows, including through repatriations."
Biden’s ‘Open Border Policies’
The continuing border crisis is just one of the slew of challenges the Democratic POTUS is facing ahead of the November mid-term elections on 8 November.
Multiple GOP lawmakers have accused Biden of masterminding the migrant crisis plaguing the US southern border with Mexico by doing away with a number of restrictive measures against illegal migrants set in place by his predecessor Trump.
In April, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, began sending thousands of illegal immigrants to Washington, DC. In August, buses from Texas started heading to New York City and Chicago. Arizona has also sent buses to Washington.
"By busing migrants to Washington DC, the Biden administration will be able to more immediately meet the needs of the people they are allowing to cross our border," Abbott said in a statement on 6 April.
According to him, the program is voluntary and illegal migrants would bussed after they had been processed and released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
‘Incentivizing Illegal Immigration’
More recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made good on his promise to divert illegal immigrants to "progressive" states. Two planes full of migrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard Airport in Massachusetts on Wednesday, according to a video seen by Fox News Digital.
"Yes, Florida can confirm the two planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha’s Vineyard today were part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations," the governor’s communications director, Taryn Fenske, said.
She added:
"States such as Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies.”
According to Fenske, the Florida legislature had earlier appropriated $12Mln to implement a program “to facilitate the transport of illegal immigrants from this state consistent with federal law."
Martha's Vineyard, an island located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts that is known for being a popular summer resort for the affluent, had earlier been proposed as a destination for the migrants by DeSantis.
"It is not the responsibility of Floridians to subsidize aliens to reside in our state unlawfully; we did not consent to Biden’s open-borders agenda," the governor’s office said at the time.