The BorderLine: Will Biden Going Soft on Venezuelan Dictator Lead to Increase in Immigrants to US; Venezuelans Become the Largest Nationality for Illegal U.S. Border Crossings

The BorderLine: Will Biden Going Soft on Venezuelan Dictator Lead to Increase in Immigrants to US?

The Biden administration announced a deal to ease economic sanctions on Venezuela on Oct. 18 in exchange for President Nicolas Maduro agreeing to hold fair presidential elections and allow opposition candidates to compete. He also promised to release some political prisoners, including American citizens. But with the ink barely dry on the deal, Maduro has already signaled his intransigence.

On Oct. 30, the Venezuelan Supreme Court, working on behalf of the dictator, suspended the results of a presidential primary held a week earlier by a coalition of opposition parties, citing “electoral violations, financial crimes, and conspiracy.”

Last week, affiliates of the Carvalho Dialogue on the Americas issued a statement criticizing President Joe Biden’s latest attempt to loosen economic sanctions on an authoritarian state in exchange for political concessions.

The statement’s signatories called it “a massive step backward” to ease sanctions on Venezuela’s Maduro regime in exchange for empty promises. They fear it will create a dangerous precedent in a region rife with autocrats and that it will exacerbate the illegal immigration wave that the Biden administration has done nothing to stop and nearly everything to encourage.

More than 40 conservatives convened by The Heritage Foundation, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and other partners formed the Carvalho Dialogue to discuss the threat to the U.S. of transnational organized crime as well as authoritarian socialism and political instability in Latin America. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary site.)

The Carvalho Dialogue’s statement declared that by allowing Venezuela to freely sell oil and gas, the U.S. will also enrich regimes friendly with Maduro such as those of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, and Russia—all of which are hostile to the U.S.

Sanctions relief will also directly benefit criminal and terrorist organizations with investments in Venezuela’s corrupt oil, gas, and gold industries. Rather than rely on the good faith of a bad actor, the statement said, Biden should enforce sanctions on Venezuela until Maduro actually allows legitimate national elections. —>READ MORE HERE

Venezuelans become the largest nationality for illegal U.S. border crossings

Venezuelans became the largest nationality arrested for illegally crossing the U.S. border, replacing Mexicans for the first time on record, according to figures released Saturday that show September was the second-highest month for arrests of all nationalities.

Venezuelans were arrested 54,833 times by the Border Patrol after entering from Mexico in September, more than double from 22,090 arrests in August and well above the previous monthly high of 33,749 arrests in September 2022.

Arrests of all nationalities entering from Mexico totaled 218,763 in September, up 21% from 181,084 in August and approaching an all-time high of 222,018 in December 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Arrests for the government’s budget year that ended Sept. 30 topped 2 million for the second year in a row, down 7% from an all-time high of more than 2.2 million arrests in the same period a year earlier.

Venezuela plunged into a political, economic and humanitarian crisis over the last decade, pushing more than 7 million people to leave. They initially settled in nearby countries in Latin America but began coming to the United States in the last three years, settling in New York, Chicago and other major cities.

The Biden administration recently announced temporary legal status for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans who were already in the United States on July 31, while vowing to deport those who come illegally after that date and fail to get asylum. It recently began deportation flights to Venezuela as part of a diplomatic thaw with the government of Nicolás Maduro, a longtime adversary.

The U.S. “surged resources and personnel” to the border in September, said Troy Miller, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. —>READ MORE HERE

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