Migrating Venezuelans undeterred by U.S. plan to resume deportation flights

At the edge of Panama’s Darien jungle Friday, Venezuelans made up the majority of migrants waiting for buses to speed them across the country to Costa Rica, where they planned to continue moving north.

Annie Carrillo, a 38-year-old Venezuelan traveling with her Colombian husband and a friend, said they had crossed the dense, lawless jungle from Colombia in three days after paying $350 each to a guide. When she heard about the U.S. government’s plan to restart deportation flights to Venezuela in the coming days, Carrillo was discouraged.

“No one emigrates from their country because they want to. One migrates because you have basic needs and there isn’t support in your native country,” she said, starting to cry.

The U.S. government hopes the threat of deportation will be enough to make Venezuelans reconsider trying to enter the United States illegally and opt instead for the online appointment system to make asylum claims or other legal paths. But some migrants said Friday that it would not stop them from continuing their journey.

Venezuela has suffered political, economic and humanitarian crises over the past decade, pushing at least 7.3 million people to migrate and making food and other necessities unaffordable for those who remain. The vast majority who fled settled in neighboring countries in Latin America, but many began coming to the United States in the last three years.

Observers have pointed out that earlier this week the Biden administration justified the expansion of temporary protected status for Venezuelans announced last month by noting the severe humanitarian challenges in the country. But now the administration has decided Venezuela is not bad enough to keep them from deporting migrants back there.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for border and immigration policy said Friday that it is already repatriating people to countries with humanitarian situations similar to those in Venezuela.

The U.S. Border Patrol encountered Venezuelans 22,000 times along the southwest border in August, nearly double the number in July, but still slightly below the 25,000 encounters in August 2022. Although Venezuelans make up about 60% of the migrants crossing the Darien Gap this year, they trail migrant numbers from countries including Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala at the U.S. border. At least 16 migrants died, and more were injured Friday when a bus carrying them crashed in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Patricia Andrade, one of the founders of the humanitarian assistance organization Venezuelan Roots in Miami, was incredulous about the possibility of mass deportations to Venezuela considering that thousands of migrants arrive every day at the southern border.

“How many flights are they going to take?” Andrade said.

She said Venezuelans are fleeing their country out of desperation and will continue to come.

“The announcement of deportations is not going to scare everyone,” said Andrade, whose organization provides clothes, sheets, towels and pots to Venezuelan recent arrivals. “As long as the Venezuelan problem is not resolved, people will continue arriving.”

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Published with permission of the Associated Press.