Humanitarian visa program benefits US economy, activists say

Representatives of pro-immigrant organizations in the United States rejected this Tuesday that the program that grants humanitarian visas to Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans supposes an economic burden for the receiving states and argued that, on the contrary, it will be a contribution to the public coffers.

The director in Florida of the organization American Business Immigration Coalition, the Venezuelan Samuel Vilchez Santiago, described as “common sense solution” the so-called humanitarian “parole” in favor of the nationals of those four nations that the Administration of the president of the United States, Joe Biden, launched at the beginning of January.

“This program offers a pathway for immigrants to enter the workforce”, which is important in the midst of an economic context like the current one and at a time when in the United States “labor shortages in various sectors”, added Vilchez, one of the participants in a virtual teleconference organized by the Venezuela American Caucus.

The executive director of this organization, Adelys Ferro, alluded to studies that show that “a large number of these immigrants who achieve legal status come to fill jobs that have been vacant for months.”

“So for recipient states, economic aid goes far beyond paying taxes.”, he added.

“Our companies urgently need these new workers. Economically, it is the most sensible thing to do.”, said Vilchez, who said that so far some 18,000 people have taken advantage of this program, with Venezuelans as the majority.

The United States announced on January 5 that it will accept more than 30,000 migrants a month from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, thus expanding a program through which humanitarian permits have been granted to Venezuelans since October.

To benefit from this program, which has been the subject of a lawsuit filed by attorneys general of 20 Republican states, applicants must meet certain requirements, including arriving by plane and having a sponsor in the United States who can give them support and support. economic.

“We watch with pain as the program is used as a political weapon by Republican leaders”, lamented María Antonieta Díaz, president of the Venezuelan American Alliance and sponsor together with her husband of about 20 people through this program.

He pointed out that from his experience he has been able to verify how “giving a person a chance has a positive and immense impact on relatives who stay in Venezuela, who benefit from remittances”.

In the case of Venezuela, a country in which “a deep humanitarian crisis” has caused the exodus of 7.1 million people, one of the largest migrations of nationals from a country, Díaz stressed that the program has reunited families and has given them opportunities for a better life.

In turn, the Cuban-American Ana Sofía Peláez, co-founder of the Miami Freedom Project organization, said that the demand of the Republican prosecutors “It’s only going to add more chaos and confusion to an already complex process.”

Vilchez and Maureen Porras, councilwoman for the city of Doral, which is home to one of the largest diasporas of Venezuelans in the United States, alluded to the reduction in the number of irregular immigrants arriving from those four countries, which dropped in January by more than 90 % compared to December.

The program “has saved lives by preventing people from taking a potentially fatal path”, said Porras, also an immigration lawyer, referring to the routes that migrants take to cross the southern border of the United States.

At the beginning of January, President Biden also announced that his country was going to return nationals from Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti to Mexico, thus expanding the use of a controversial rule called Title 42, inherited from now former President Donald Trump (2017-2021). , a measure that may also explain the drop in the irregular arrival of these immigrants.

Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said that although “Is not perfect”, the program is “good news for Haitians”, who in recent years have migrated in greater numbers to the United States, especially to Florida.

Ferro, from the Venezuela American Caucus, emphasized that it is false that those who come to the United States through this humanitarian program receive financial aid from the Government, while Díaz, from the Venezuelan American Alliance, said that those who take advantage of programs are a minority. of social help.

Source: EFE