(NewsNation) – New migrant encounter numbers show the United States is on track to surpass last February’s numbers at almost 140,000 unauthorized crossings with just six days remaining in the month.
The number of Venezuelan migrant crossings is also up compared to this time last year, with more than 6,000 this month alone.
Fewer than 2,000 migrants were flown back to Venezuela in the past four months. That’s just a fraction of those whom officials apprehended.
NewsNation confirmed the removal flights sending migrants who entered the U.S. without authorization back to Venezuela have been rejected by their government for the past four weeks.
The reason: The U.S. imposed sanctions on state-owned mining companies.
Other sanctions hitting oil and gas are also on the table.
The U.S. had lifted those sanctions against the authoritarian rule of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro under the promise of more free and fair elections.
That hasn’t happened. The country’s Supreme Court just barred Maduro’s main opposition leader Maria Corin Machado from running for president.
The country’s vice president claims the U.S. Is blackmailing Venezuela and is refusing the flights.
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R-Texas, places the blame squarely at the feet of President Joe Biden’s administration.
“They tell you one thing and they do another,” Gonzalez said. “Details matter. When you say you’re repatriating people, you’re deporting people to Venezuela, are you deporting dozens or hundreds or deporting thousands? And it’s very clear they went from deporting dozens to zero, and that is not going to fix the problem.”
The migrants who were supposed to be on those four rejected flights can’t remain in custody forever.
A case review must be conducted and migrants will likely be placed under an order of supervision or in an alternative-to-detention program, which is already strained and has limited resources to track individuals, sources told NewsNation’s Ali Bradley.
Migrants won’t get a notice to appear as they have already received a final order of removal alongside 1.5 million migrants who have also received orders of removal but have yet to be deported.