Why refugee resettlement is a crucial part of US migration strategy

The political space on immigration in the United States ahead of the November midterms has largely been dominated by games of anti-immigrant one-upmanship between Republican presidential hopefuls. On September 14, 2022, two planes filled with approximately 50 migrants and asylum-seekers from Venezuela landed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The planes were sent by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who first flew the asylum-seekers from Texas to Florida before Martha’s Vineyard, under the deception that they would be arriving in Boston. The flights were perhaps the most extreme example of recent efforts by Republican governors to transfer migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers to northern Democrat-controlled areas.

Much furor has focused on the cravenness of politicians using human beings as part of political stunts. Yet the needs of Venezuelans arriving at the southern border are also not being met by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration. Years of political repression, violence, and economic insecurity in Venezuela have come to head to create the second largest external displacement crisis in the world with 6.8 million displaced — just behind Ukraine. However, the government has allocated just 15,000 spots for the upcoming fiscal year to refugee resettlement from all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

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