US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to use pandemic-era restrictions to expel Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants caught on the southwestern border with Mexico, but allow some to enter the country by air, for humanitarian reasons, from according to three authorities familiar with the matter.
The move comes following the US Supreme Court ruled this week that the pandemic-era restrictions, known as Title 42, must remain in effect, which might take months as a legal battle over their future unfolds.
Under Title 42, originally issued in March 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic under Donald Trump, border agents might quickly expel migrants to Mexico without offering them a chance to seek asylum.
Tough diplomatic relations between the US and the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have complicated deportations to those countries. Growing numbers of migrants from these regions have reached the US-Mexico border seeking help and asylum amid economic and political turmoil.
The new rules would be housed in a program for Venezuelans launched in October. The program allows up to 24,000 Venezuelans outside the US to apply to enter the country through “humanitarian parole” if they have guarantors in the US. Venezuelans arrested trying to cross the border are usually returned to Mexico.
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