The very next day after Angie Pina was expelled from the U.S. to Mexico under a new rule from President Biden for Venezuelan asylum-seekers, she turned right back around and entered the U.S. again on Saturday.
Pina claims she first stepped foot on U.S. soil on Wednesday morning, before President Biden announced Mexico had agreed to take Venezuelans seeking asylum who had been rejected from the US.
Pina was held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso for a day and a half before she learned she and dozens of other Venezuelan women in the same holding cell would be sent back to Mexico.
“It was a crisis. We were all yelling and sobbing,” she said. “One lady led us all in prayer, but that’s when reality set in. They never told us why we were being sent back but some Venezuelan men who crossed behind us got to stay.”
Friday, Pina was escorted across one of El Paso’s international bridges and released into Mexico, where a new world of uncertainty awaited.
“I’m a lesbian; I have one month trying to get here and I’m afraid,” the 33-year-old said. “I’ve gone through so much to get here. I’m broke. I try to lift my head up, but I feel like I’m losing strength to go on. I feel like I might as well step in front of a car.”
The Biden Administration announced it will grant 24,000 Venezuelans humanitarian entry if they apply online and arrive via air, rather than crossing the land border by foot as hundreds of thousands have been doing, with El Paso alone recording up to 2,100 migrants in a single day.
Pina along with others expelled just like her, stood outside a Mexican immigration center and received basic services. These services include; a place to shower and charge their phones.
Early Saturday morning, Pina said, “I’m considering trying to cross the border again. I would like to try again because I can’t go back to Venezuela. I’m an engineer in my country. I don’t have money to go back. I left because I have a three-year-old daughter I was unable to provide for because I was constantly discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.”
Biden’s plan to discourage illegal crossings at the border, seems to have fallen short of the plan. As many of them are turning around and attempting to come right back to the U.S. illegally.
Many Venezuelans agreed that they would try once again, even if that meant turning to dangerous people-smuggling cartels.
“If they don’t allows us back in, we will go back in legally or illegally,” said an immigrant. “No one is going to go back. There’s thousands of Venezuelans on their way right now. They’re not going back.”
Pina threw caution to the wind and walked back over the Rio Grande to El Paso with her partner, where they surrendered themselves to border control.
Pina was taken to a holding cell to await her fate, which looks like she will face deportation once again.
Of course they will. They’ve already proven they don’t care about our laws.
When they are swimming across the rio grande just start shooting at them, they will either turn around or die.