Featured image: Migrants walking near an airplane. Photo: EFE/File photo.
Since the end of January, the government of Venezuela has stopped accepting flights of migrants deported from the US and Mexico. This was reported by the US outlet The Wall Street Journal. This will place greater pressure on the Biden administration to address the migrant issue during the 2024 presidential race in the US.
Following the Barbados Agreements signed in October of last year between the Venezuelan government and part of the opposition in the Unitary Platform, deportation flights of Venezuelan citizens who are in the US and Mexico were activated.
According to figures shown by the US outlet, the US Customs and Border Protection Office reported that in October, November, and December, the US government sent back between six and seven thousand people a month on repatriation flights. However, in January, that number dropped sharply to 2,727.
“In the past, Mexican authorities had flown migrants from the US border to southern cities in an attempt to discourage the rush of Venezuelan arrivals to the United States,” the Wall Street Journal noted.
Likewise, the outlet reported that there are no direct commercial flights from the US to Venezuela, and Mexico will not deport Venezuelans through commercial flights either.
Venezuelan Opposition Economist Demonstrates Damaging Effects of Sanctions on Venezuela
So far, the cessation of deportation flights is not a formal measure, a person close to the matter explained. However, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez reported that Venezuela would revoke repatriation flights for Venezuelan migrants and would review “any existing cooperation mechanism” with the United States.
Rodriguez’s statement came after the US government announced the reactivation of sanctions against the South American country. In addition, the US and the Venezuelan far-right opposition breached the Barbados Agreement by not recognizing the ruling of Venezuela’s Supreme Court that ratified the disqualification of Maria Corina Machado and by organizing violent plots to oust President Nicolás Maduro.
(La Iguana TV) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
