There are tens of thousands of Venezuelans on the road between Colombia and the U.S. border, trying to escape a brutal Communist tyranny and an epically failed economy. They were invited to come by Joe Biden, believing they would get asylum.
Biden was prepared to welcome them — until the immigration issue became a drag on the Democrats’ midterm chances. So Biden made a cynical deal with Mexico to restart the Trump era “Remain in Mexico” policy and send any Venezuelans who arrived at the U.S. border out of the country to await a determination of their asylum claims.
But Mexico didn’t want them either. So thousands of Venezuelans are being sent back home. And thousands more — 3,700 migrants a day arrive in Costa Rica — who are between Colombia and Mexico are literally stranded.
Biden should not have invited the Venezuelans here in the first place. But this mess is now wholly owned by Biden and the United States government. Biden should admit to owning it and, at the very least, offer humanitarian assistance to nations involved in a crisis that could turn very ugly in the next few months.
Costa Rica’s Immigration Director Marlen Luna Alfaro said earlier this month that 3,700 migrants are arriving daily at its southern border with Panama, 80% of whom are Venezuelan. That compares to about 200 per day previously. President Rodrigo Chaves warned the number could reach 10,000. He called for humane treatment of them in Costa Rica and said the government isn’t considering repatriation flights right now.
“Closing our border is impossible because we don’t have an army,” Chaves said on October 12. “Returning them is like playing ping pong. You send them back there and they just come back here.”
Venezuela’s embassy in Costa Rica is run by allies of opposition leader Juan Guido and has partnered with a local Catholic charity to help stranded migrants.
The blood of these refugees is not on President Maduro’s hands. Joe Biden is responsible. He set in motion a human wave of desperate people and then pulled the welcome mat back when it became politically inconvenient. What kind of leader does that? How many Venezuelans are going to die because Joe Biden wanted to play politics, first by opening the door to America to appease his open-border allies, and then by slamming it shut in the faces of people who were being oppressed by a Communist tyranny because he was losing votes?
To be eligible under the administration’s new program, Venezuelans will need to have the means to fly at their own expense to airports within the United States and to obtain passports, which is complicated and expensive for many Venezuelans. Reuters reported that the cost of a passport in Venezuela is $200, nearly 10 times the country’s monthly minimum wage, and that only 1 percent of Venezuelans who left the country between June and August held a passport.
There needs to be order and compassion at the border. What we don’t need are cynical politicians who use the immigration issue as a political club to beat their political opponents and then turn around and betray the trust of those who came here by invitation.
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