TIJUANA, Mexico — When a plane full of Venezuelan migrants landed in San Diego from Texas on a recent afternoon, Luis Gonzalez and many of those around him began to applaud, rattling the chains that bound their wrists to their ankles and waists.
They believed they were about to be processed and released from U.S. immigration custody, one more step toward safety after a grueling and often deadly journey from South America to the U.S.-Mexico border. It was only when they arrived at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, had their shackles removed and noticed Mexican flags on officials' uniforms that they said they began to realize they'd been misled.
"I was so excited, so excited. I thought that at last, thanks to God, we were finally in the United States, but it was the opposite," Gonzalez said in Spanish. "They tricked us. They played with my emotions."
Gonzalez is among hundreds of Venezuelans who crossed the border in Texas and then were flown to San Diego and expelled to Tijuana under a new agreement between the United States and Mexico. On Oct. 12, the two countries announced that Mexico had agreed to receive Venezuelans who crossed without authorization onto U.S. soil, and that the United States would simultaneously create a program to receive a limited number of Venezuelans similar to the one for Ukrainians fleeing war in their country.
Venezuela has long been a country in economic and political crisis. According to the United Nations, more than 7.1 million Venezuelans have fled their country in recent years. Most are living in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the U.N. found that roughly 4.3 million are currently struggling to take care of basic needs including food, housing and stable employment.
The agreement between the United States and Mexico regarding Venezuelan migrants comes after the countries met with others from the western hemisphere and adopted a joint plan to collectively respond to forced displacement.
Mexico has placed some restrictions on the Venezuelan expulsions, according to a Mexican official with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the record. According to the official, there are five ports of entry, including San Ysidro , where Mexico is willing to receive up to 200 Venezuelans per day, for a total of up to 1,000 along the border daily.
Two Mexican officials said that Mexico will only receive as many expelled Venezuelans as the United States accepts through the new program. Similarly, in its announcement, the Department of Homeland Security said that the United States would only accept Venezuelans through its program as long as Mexico keeps in place its "independent but parallel effort to accept the return of Venezuelan nationals."
According to DHS, the program through which certain Venezuelans can enter the United States will be capped at 24,000, fewer than the number apprehended borderwide in August and far fewer than the 100,000 Ukrainians taken in earlier this year. Venezuelans who have been ordered deported in the last five years, as well as those who crossed without authorization between ports of entry into the United States, Mexico or Panama after the announcement, are not eligible for the program.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the first four Venezuelans had reached U.S. soil through the new process. Meanwhile, thousands have already been expelled to Mexican border cities.
Several Venezuelans who were among the first expelled to Tijuana told The San Diego Union-Tribune that U.S. officials had separated them from family members — in most cases spouses and in one case parents and siblings — elsewhere along the border before flying them to San Diego and expelling them.
Each one interviewed by the Union-Tribune emphasized that they crossed into the United States before the policy announcement, providing documents from their time in custody as proof. They felt it was unfair to send them back when they had no way of knowing that a policy change was coming.
"If they had told us this in advance, do you think I would've risked my life in the jungle?" said Michael Estrada, who was among the first expelled, in Spanish. "Human rights for us don't exist."
Now in a city they do not know and disillusioned in their American dreams, they are struggling with a major decision — wait to see if they will qualify for a way into the United States, begin the process for residency in Mexico, or try to find a way home.
Flights from Texas
Expulsion flights are nothing new under the Biden administration.
Expulsions began under former President Donald Trump in March 2020 under a policy known as Title 42 that says officials can send border crossers back to the country they crossed from or to their home country without performing normal processing — including evaluating asylum requests. It was announced as a way to slow the spread of COVID-19, but many have questioned that reasoning as both White House administrations have appeared to use as a deterrence measure for asylum-seekers even as other pandemic restrictions have eased.
But the flights began under President Joe Biden.
Though Title 42 in theory applies to all undocumented people trying to enter the United States, in practice, it is largely controlled by whom Mexico is willing to receive back. For most of the past two years, that has generally meant that Mexicans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans were expelled to Mexico while other nationalities were able to cross onto U.S. soil to request asylum.
When Mexico restricted expulsions in certain parts of the Texas border in 2021 because of safety concerns for migrant families, the Biden administration flew families from Texas to San Diego to be able to expel them to Tijuana.
The Biden administration tried to end Title 42 earlier this year, but after a lawsuit from several states including Louisiana, Arizona and Missouri, a federal judge forced the administration to keep the policy in place. Though it is continuing to fight in court to end the program, the Biden administration has also negotiated with Mexico to expand Title 42's effects in response to trends in who is crossing the border.
Venezuelans became the focus of those negotiations after their share in overall apprehensions rose to about 16% in September from about 6% a year ago.
The majority of Venezuelans, like many nationalities, cross in Texas. In September 2022, Border Patrol agents in the El Paso Sector, across from Ciudad Juarez, apprehended more than 20,100 Venezuelans, and agents in the Del Rio sector apprehended more than 10,800. In contrast, San Diego agents apprehended 77 Venezuelans, and agents in the El Centro Sector apprehended 91.
More than 120 Venezuelans were expelled to Tijuana in the first two days of the new policy, according to one of the Mexican officials who was not authorized to speak on the record. All of those interviewed by the Union-Tribune had flown from El Paso to San Diego in immigration custody before being expelled.
Neither officials with Mexico's immigration agency nor with DHS responded to questions about the current count of Venezuelan expulsions in time for publication.
Alberto Cabezas Talavero of the U.N.'s International Office of Migration said that his agency has been monitoring the situation and estimated that more than 5,400 Venezuelan migrants had been expelled along the border through Wednesday of this week, including more than 980 to Tijuana. He noted that his agency doesn't have official data.
Recalling their time in U.S. custody, several men from the first flight had one word in Spanish for the experience — "fatal" — which roughly translates to awful.
They remembered overcrowded cages of people, cold rooms, bad food and always bright lights while in immigration custody. They said they were never allowed to shower though they spent days in Customs and Border Protection holding areas.
Estrada said that it was only upon reaching a shelter in Tijuana that he was able to shower. Afterward, when he picked up the clothing he'd had on the entire time in custody, including on the flight, he realized how horribly he'd smelled.
Full shelters
Though many of the Venezuelans who arrived that first week were taken to shelters by Mexican immigration officials, others messaged the Union-Tribune after wandering the streets in search of a place to stay.
The new Venezuelan arrivals have more than replaced the asylum-seekers who were waiting in Tijuana's shelters for their immigration court cases in the United States under another program, commonly called "Remain in Mexico."
Though Mexico announced Tuesday that Remain in Mexico has fully ended, there are now so few available beds in Tijuana's shelter network that Mexican immigration officials have chosen to bus Venezuelans to other cities.
On Wednesday of last week, a Venezuelan woman stood outside the walls of an immigration office in the Tijuana neighborhood Residencial La Esmeralda, yelling for her nephew who was waiting on a bus inside the complex. Yosvelzy Castañeda said she was already a permanent resident of Mexico after being granted asylum there years ago, and that her nephew had given Mexican immigration her information after being expelled from the United States.
The night before, roughly 200 Venezuelans inside that office protested the time it was taking to receive their temporary permits to be in Mexico, but human rights officials were able to calm the situation, according to city and federal officials. It's not clear whether the forced busing to other cities is connected with that situation.
Castañeda tried to speak with officials who passed by, including the bus drivers, but she couldn't find out where they were taking her nephew and why he couldn't be released to live with her.
Out of desperation, she grabbed a notebook from the Union-Tribune and began writing place names on the backs of the pages, holding them through the gate for her nephew to see.
"Are you going to Mexico City?" she wrote.
Her nephew, visible through the bus window, shook his finger no.
"Tapachula," she wrote.
Maybe, he motioned.
"Tabasco," she wrote.
Also maybe, he motioned, indicating that was the most likely.
In the late afternoon, the bus left the office, and men and women pressed themselves up against the window to motion to journalists standing on the sidewalk. Some crossed their arms in X's, others held up bags of snacks. Some pointed. It was not clear what they wanted to communicate.
The next day, Castañeda told the Union-Tribune she still hadn't heard from her nephew.
Meanwhile, a group of men from the first expulsion flights said that they'd been tasked with building bunk beds in a new shelter space that the city of Tijuana is opening up for Venezuelans. The videos they sent appear to be inside a sports complex. Tijuana officials were not able to say in time for publication when the shelter space would open.
Family separations
Abraham Suárez and his wife crossed together into Texas. Both were expelled, but at opposite ends of the border, Suárez said.
He recalled asking U.S. officials over and over about his wife after they'd been taken into custody and split apart, but he never received a response, he said. When he realized he was being sent to Mexico as he crossed the line to Tijuana from San Diego, all he could think of was her.
She, too, was expelled, but to Matamoros.
He said his wife had already been pushed out of the shelter where she'd initially been received.
"She was told to either go to Mexico City or sleep in the street," Suárez said.
He doesn't know how they will be able to reunite, he said, because the temporary permits that Mexico gave them wouldn't allow time for them to find each other, let alone figure out where to go from there.
A group of Venezuelan women in Tijuana similarly said that they'd been separated from loved ones. They asked not to be named out of concern for their vulnerable situations.
Two of the women, ages 19 and 24, said they'd been separated from their husbands and that their husbands had been processed into the United States instead of being expelled under the policy. The 19-year-old said that her husband was still being held in U.S. immigration custody this week, but she expected him to be released soon. She said her sisters-in-law had also crossed with them and had been released to Arizona.
She said she hasn't yet been able to communicate directly with her husband.
A third woman said that she'd crossed with her parents and siblings. Only she was expelled.
"How it is now, we're alone," said the 24-year-old who was separated from her husband.
"It's unjust what they did," the 19-year-old added.
DHS did not respond to questions about family separations of Venezuelans.
Disillusioned decisions
For Gonzalez, who was on one of the first expulsion flights of Venezuelans, having to figure out how to survive in Tijuana is far from what he pictured when he celebrated with close family and friends before setting out on his journey.
He recalled grilling at a party with his loved ones and then taking his children out to lunch before he left where he'd been living in Colombia, which is hosting more than 1.8 million displaced Venezuelans, according to the United Nations.
Now in Tijuana, he decided to apply for asylum in Mexico, the only way he's been told that he can get a work permit to stabilize his life in the city.
Once beginning the Mexican asylum process, Venezuelans can quickly get work permits that last for one year. It's not clear whether those permits are renewable.
Several men told the Union-Tribune that they hoped to work long enough to make the money needed to go back home. Others said they couldn't go back.
Edward Pimental said he sold his car and took a loan out on his house to be able to afford the journey north. He said he had nothing to go back to.
For Daniel Gonzalez, the most important thing was to be able to support his family now.
"I told them that I came here because of the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela," said Daniel Gonzalez after emerging from an immigration office with his work permit. "That's the truth."
He said even basic food items and medicine for his family were too expensive to purchase in Venezuela because of the economy there. He and a friend he made during the expulsion process immediately headed to downtown Tijuana to look for work.
Jorge Rodriguez said he hadn't eaten all day so that he could make it to his work permit appointment with the little money that he had. He said that he felt ashamed that he and his brother had had to resort to asking for help on the street.
"I know in a few months, I'll be OK — not where I wanted to be, but I'll be OK," he said.
Other Venezuelans said they didn't want to apply for asylum in Mexico. They still have hope of being allowed into the United States, and they've heard that getting asylum in Mexico can hinder the chances of getting protection in the U.S.
In conversation with Suárez, Estrada and several other Venezuelan men at the shelter that they're living in, the group said they already experienced harassment from the Tijuana police.
"Mexicans don't feel safe in Mexico, and we feel even less safe," said Alexandro Villadiego in Spanish.
Suárez said he'd also experienced racism and xenophobia from Tijuana residents. A woman in an Oxxo store sneered at him after asking if he was Venezuelan, he said.
Looking to the future, the group of men thought the policy change would increase desperation among Venezuelan migrants.
They predicted that Mexico and Panama will be the countries that end up with the most Venezuelans as a result of the United States' change in policy. They also believe that many Venezuelans will likely risk sneaking into the United States since they can no longer turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents and request asylum, as has been the case for other nationalities turned back by Title 42.
As past trends have shown, sneaking in generally means more dangerous route and, ultimately, an increase in deaths at the border.
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