More than a million Venezuelans have been allowed into the US in the time President Joe Biden has been in office.
A staggering 1,022,409 citizens of the South American country have been encountered at the southern border or granted admission into the US through one of Biden’s immigration programs, according to federal government statistics from 2021 through October of this year.
This citizenship is particularly important because Venezuelans have largely fueled the crisis at the border for the last four years – from asylum-seekers fleeing the communist regime back home to the Tren de Aragua members who have unleashed a wave of crime in American cities.
‘I knew it was high; I didn’t think it was that high.
‘I think people are going to be stunned by that because I am, but that’s an incredible number,’ John Fabbricatore, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Denver told DailyMail.com.
The vast majority of the million-plus Venezuelans arrived through the US-Mexico border, US Customs and Border Protection figures show.
At least 905,109 migrants were taken into custody by US Border Patrol or had asylum appointments at a port of entry through the CBP One Mobile App, the legal way of requesting protection from the US government.
Another 117,300 Venezuelans were granted admission to the US through Biden’s CHNV parole process.
Citizens from the Spanish-speaking country began flooding over the southern border in 2021 – shattering records for encounters and norms seen on the border.
The Democrat president took office in January 2021.
In the first fiscal year of Biden’s administration– which began in Oct. 2020 when former President Donald Trump was still in office and ended in Sept. 2021– 50,499 Venezuelans crossed the US-Mexico border.
Before then, Venezuelans weren’t even in the top four nationalities seen by border agents, where Mexican migrants were the top border crossers, followed by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Mexicans were so prevalent before that the Border Patrol agent used a term, ‘OTM’ or ‘other than Mexican’ for any illegal immigrant caught at the border who was not from that country.
When the Venezuelans arrived at the border, they broke another norm.
Before 2021, Border Patrol agents chased illegal immigrants who snuck into the country and tried to evade US authorities all together.
However, the South Americans crossed into the US illegally and looked for the green-uniformed federal agents to surrender to them and ask for asylum.
US law requires Border Patrol agents to release migrants– even those who enter the US illegally– who invoke their right to seek asylum to be set free into the US while the courts rule on the refugee claim– a process that can take years.
As Venezuelans were released into the US, even gaining work permits through the asylum system, the number of countrymen who tried the same path to enter the country grew.
In 2022, the number of Venezuelans who crossed the border tripled compared to the previous year to 189,520.
By then, Texas’ border cities and towns were on the frontlines of the growing migrant crisis– with Eagle Pass, Del Rio and El Paso bearing the brunt of the national emergency.
The humanitarian disaster brought new, heartbreaking realities – with families with kids, pregnant women and even children traveling without their parents, what law enforcement calls unaccompanied children, arriving at the border in never-before-seen numbers.
Prior to this era, migrants were mostly single, male adults.
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of the Lone Star State, railed against the federal government, with Biden refusing to admit there was a problem at the border.
‘As the federal government continues to turn a blind eye to the border crisis, the State of Texas will remain steadfast in our efforts to fill in the gaps and keep Texans safe,’ Abbott said.
‘By busing migrants to Washington, D.C., the Biden Administration will be able to more immediately meet the needs of the people they are allowing to cross our border. Texas should not have to bear the burden of the Biden Administration’s failure to secure our border.’
On April 13, 2022, Abbott took control of the conversation over the border, announcing he had sent the first busload of migrants from the Texas-Mexico border to the nation’s capital.
The highly coordinated stunt even included the busload of migrants arriving at the Washington, D.C. Fox News office where cameras had been told when the migrants would arrive.
That same year, Abbott sent buses to New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia.
In 2023, the number of Venezuelans who crossed into the US doubled again, as CBP encountered 334,914.
That same year, DailyMail.com became the first news organization to warn criminals from Venezuela, including a notorious prison gang called Tren de Aragua, had crossed the border and were already committing crimes.
TdA is known to hide among its own law-abiding, asylum-seeking countrymen – not just to blend in, but to also exploit their own people.
The mob transformed from a Venezuelan prison gang to an international criminal ring by smuggling desperate citizens out of the country as they fled communist dictator Nicolás Maduro – profiting from a legitimate humanitarian crisis.
Since 2014, nearly eight million Venezuelans have left their homeland, according to the United Nations. Many went to neighboring South American countries where TdA followed. Now the same thing is happening in the US.
As DailyMail.com exclusively reported, TdA moved its new headquarters to the US-Mexico border in Juarez, Mexico, where it is kidnapping asylum-seeking migrants who are attempting to enter America.
By early 2024, multiple TdA gangsters were accused in high-profile crimes including beating two NYPD officers near Times Square and the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, whose TdA murderer has now been convicted in her slaying.
As the year went on, so did the crimes the mafia was accused of participating in.
However, the gang remained largely unknown by Americans until August when video of armed TdA gangster storming an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado went viral.
Border experts believe the number of Venezuelans who have been allowed into the country could be indicative of the number of TdA members who could be here as well.
‘If just 1% are TdA, that’s 10,000– easy,’ Fabbricatore added.
‘Come on, we know it’s not 1%. We know Venezuela was having a lot of criminal problems. That number is obviously higher. Especially the young men who have come in. I’m not saying every young Venezuelan man is a potential problem, but a lot of them came here for get money. This idea that they had that it would be easy to rob, steal and make more money than they’ve ever made in their lifetime.’
Now, federal law enforcement officials believe the gang has spread to 16 states in the US.
Designated a transnational criminal organization by the US government in July, TdA has now been linked to several murders, rapes, home invasions, drug sales and prostitutions across the country.