A Venezuelan man recently released into the country thanked President Joe Biden and expressed fear over a possible Donald Trump presidency in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation at the Houston airport.
The immigrant, who said that he crossed the southern border into the U.S. illegally, thanked Biden as he waited with a group of migrants from Venezuela and Guinea in the airport. Border Patrol has recorded record illegal immigration at the southern border under the Biden administration, with more than 2.2 million encounters in fiscal year 2022 and more than 2 million encounters in fiscal year 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). (RELATED: Border Patrol Agents Quietly Support Texas’ Move To Seize Area Of Border)
”Honestly, thank you for this opportunity … without your help we wouldn’t be here so that means a lot, that means a lot for me and that means a lot for all of us. I have many friends who crossed the border and they’re grateful [now that they have] a good financial situation. They help their family from Venezuela as well, they try to bring them and I think that’s awesome,” the migrant, who withheld his name and said he lost his passport and used his paperwork from Border Patrol to travel, told the DCNF.
He also said he feared deportation if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Trump took home a win at the Iowa caucus on Monday night and promised the largest deportation “since Dwight Eisenhower” in his victory speech.
The Biden administration announced in October the start of deportation flights to Venezuela to address the surge.
Fiscal year 2024 has already seen a record month in December with more than 300,000 migrant encounters, according to Fox News, which cited internal government sources.
The Venezuelan migrant said he crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, days before where the state and federal authorities have recently been feuding over border enforcement powers. The Texas Department of Public Safety seized control of city property in Eagle Pass in early January.
The migrant joins a backlog of roughly 3 million cases in the immigration court systems, as previously reported by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). He said he’s confident his case will be accepted.
”I will stay here in Houston and I’ll go to my brother’s house and hopefully get a job and help my family,” he said.
“I want to work here,” he said, adding “I asked for asylum and they gave me one year so I have to fight for my case.”
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