Lauren C. Moye, FISM News
Fourteen GOP congressmen are demanding answers from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas regarding how many violent Venezuelan prisoners have attempted to enter the U.S. and what is being done to prevent them from crossing the border.
Led by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) and prompted by “serious concerns,” the coalition wrote, “It has been widely reported that the murderous and narco-terrorist Madura regime in Venezuela is deliberately releasing violent prisoners early … and pushing them to join caravans heading to the United States.”
These prisoners include those convicted of murder, rape, and extortion.
The Congressmen referenced a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report that Breitbart Texas first obtained on Sept. 18. This report warned that released prisoners had been seen traveling from Tapachula, Mexico towards the Southwest border in July.
According to Breitbart’s anonymous DHS source, migrants in this particular caravan knew that there were Venezuelan convicts among them that included hardened criminals. However, the official said that unless an apprehended migrant volunteers that they committed a violent crime in Venezuela, border patrol agents have no way to know because there is no access to Venezuelan criminal databases.
“As a result of the Biden Administration’s disastrous border patrol policies, it is unknown how many of the violent Venezuelan prisoners have been released into the interior of the U.S., as identifying Venezuelans with criminal records is nearly impossible,” the congressmen wrote. “This will undoubtedly put our country in grave danger.”
The representatives are demanding a projected headcount of how many Venezuelan prisoners will enter the country, what steps the DHS is taking to monitor and prevent the admittance of dangerous criminals, and how many are known to have already attempted entry.
Nehls previously tweeted:
🚨BREAKING🚨
DHS confirms that Venezuela empties prisons and sends violent criminals to our southern border.
President Trump warned us about this years ago.
— Congressman Troy Nehls (@RepTroyNehls) September 18, 2022
“And now they’re sending them back because what they are doing is they are opening their prisons and prisoners, murderers, human traffickers, all of these people, drug dealers, they’re coming in through the caravans, not everybody, but are coming in illegally,” former President Donald Trump said in June, when he held a joint press conference on border security with Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows that there have been 153,905 encounters with Venezuelans so far in Fiscal Year 2022, which began in October 2021.
In July of this year, there were 17,652 border patrol encounters with Venezuelan nationals. In August, that number climbed to 25,349.
On July 11, Mayorkas extended the Temporary Protected Status, which prevents protected individuals from being deported, and grants a work permit to Venezuelans for an additional 18 months as part of an effort to provide “humanitarian support” to the residents. It was originally set to end earlier this month.
“America’s adversaries despise what our country stands for and are now sending their most dangerous individuals to our borders, where they will have no trouble getting in as a result of the Biden Administration’s failed immigration policies,” the Representatives said, before calling on Mayorkas once again to secure the U.S. border.