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SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good morning, everyone. Let me just say at the top that besides being delighted to be joined by Secretary Mayorkas, I also want to take this opportunity to say how thrilled I am that we have Matt Miller joining us as our new spokesperson. Probably have more to say on that in the days to come. But I couldn't be more pleased, not just for me but for the department and, indeed, for our country. An extraordinary professional I've had the benefit of working with over many years. And I'm equally grateful to Vedant Patel, who's done an extraordinary job as our spokesperson these past weeks.
In two weeks' time, the CDC's temporary Title 42 public health order will expire, as required by court order. President Biden and agencies across our government have been taking robust steps to prepare for the effect this will likely have on our immigration system, our partners in the region, and the movement of people across our hemisphere.
Secretary Mayorkas will speak about the immediate impact of Title 42's expiration and our stepped-up enforcement efforts. But first, I'd like to take this opportunity to put this in the context of our broader approach to migration in the region, which we'll continue to build on in the coming weeks. It's an approach focused on making migration more safe, orderly, and humane, and on advancing the interests of the American people.
If you step back - and it's really important to do that - globally there are more than 100 million people on the move today, compelled to leave their homes in search of security and better lives. That is more people than at any time in recorded history. And in our own hemisphere, we are facing an unprecedented migration challenge. Long-term drivers like violence, corruption, lack of economic opportunity, continue to push people from their homes - problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, crises of governance, extreme weather events caused by the changing climate. Twenty million people are displaced across this hemisphere, and the strain on transit and host countries is high.
Migration is the definition of a challenge that no country can solve alone. The magnitude, the range of drivers, the push and pull factors - all demand that we work together. That's why last summer President Biden brought together leaders from nations across the Western Hemisphere to agree to the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection; 21 countries have joined that declaration. The LA Declaration is an acknowledgment of our shared responsibility on migration, and our shared commitment to work together and leverage the strengths of partners across government, civil society, the private sector, humanitarian organizations, multilateral organizations, all coming together to address this challenge.
So let me highlight some of the ways the United States is working with our partners in the region on migration so as to take, among other things, pressure off our borders by giving people alternatives to making a hazardous journey to seek asylum in the United States.
Of course, fundamentally we're working to tackle the root causes of migration so that people don't have to leave their homes in the first place. That includes investing and redirecting and mobilizing resources toward greater economic opportunities, as we've done through the more than $4.2 billion in private sector commitments that Vice President Harris has helped to secure for northern Central America. These investments by businesses and social enterprises will sustain and create jobs, connect people to the digital economy, expand access to financing, provide training and education for young people and workers, and improve economic livelihoods across the region.
We're also investing in economic opportunity through the nearly $1.2 billion that we provided in humanitarian assistance across the region last year, and through initiatives like our commitment to work with our partners to train and equip 500,000 local healthcare workers across the hemisphere over the next five years so that more people can get quality care in their own communities. All of these investments will help people feel that they have a future in their own communities.
Now, of course many of these investments can take time to bear fruit. So we're working in parallel on critical collaborations and initiatives with partners in the hemisphere to have a more near-term impact. First, we're supporting host countries as they provide legal protections and assistance to refugees and migrants so that they can thrive in their new communities. We're doing that by delivering funding to schools, health facilities, and other providers of support to migrants, funding the staffing and capacity-building of local asylum centers and systems, and supporting registration and documentation efforts so that individuals can gain and demonstrate legal status, which is critical for access to work, to schools, to social services.
Our partners in turn are doing extraordinary work in this area. Colombia, for example, has given 10-year temporary protected status to approximately 2.5 million Venezuelans, allowing them to work, to study, to access public services. Ecuador, Costa Rica, Belize are also undertaking similar efforts to regularize migrants from Venezuela and Nicaragua, as well as Peru. We see efforts as well to forgive existing migrant overstay fines, effectively removing one of the largest barriers to regularization. Brazil's "Operation Welcome" helped over 100,000 Venezuelans voluntarily resettle in places where they have greater economic opportunity. Mexico and Canada are increasing the number of people that they welcome on a humanitarian basis.
We're also working with partners in the hemisphere to accept repatriation flights, increase security forces along migration routes, provide more assistance to migrants and refugees. We continue to surge assistance to host countries throughout the hemisphere to help integrate refugees and migrants, and increase humanitarian aid and protection for vulnerable populations.
Second, we're announcing a 60-day surge of urgent assistance to regional partners to enhance security, to counter smuggling - an effort that Ali will share more about in a few moments. We're also working to counter disinformation being spread by traffickers and other bad actors, including by expanding our paid and earned media outreach to high out-migration communities and migrant routes through channels potentially reaching upward of 85 million people - so that people who want to migrate have accurate information about how to do so legally and safely, and know the dangers of putting themselves in the hands of traffickers.
Third, we're significantly expanding access to lawful pathways for migration for those in need, including the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. For too many people in too many places, these pathways feel far from reach. So we're working to create more opportunities, and to make them more accessible. The United States welcomed six times as many refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean in 2022 than during the previous year. We're on track to more than double those arrivals in 2023.
And in January, President Biden committed to welcoming 30,000 individuals every month from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua through a parole program. Irregular migration from those four countries fell by more than 97 percent within the first month - because people now have a legal and safe pathway. That means tens of thousands of people are no longer making the perilous overland journey to our border, or putting themselves at the mercy of abusive smugglers.
We're partnering with both national and international NGOs to connect the most vulnerable populations - including religious minorities, political dissidents, LGBTQI+ persons, and survivors of gender-based violence - to expedited resettlement processes.
We're developing new ways to increase the scope and effectiveness of our migration system, like Welcome Corps, which - for the first time ever - allows American individuals to sponsor refugees.
And soon we will stand up Regional Processing Centers in select locations in the region. I want to thank Colombia and Guatemala specifically for their role as excellent partners of the United States in these efforts. These centers will be operated by international organization partners and improve qualified individuals' access to accelerated refugee resettlement processing, family reunification, and labor pathways in the United States. They will also be a referral point for lawful pathways as well, as well as humanitarian and refugee protections in other countries, like Canada and Spain.
These centers will take a hugely important step to prevent people from making the dangerous journey to the border by providing a much safer legal option to migrate that they can pursue in and from their own countries. It's a new and innovative approach that does right by people who want to migrate, and that enhances security and stability in the region.
Later today, I'll have a chance to travel to Denver for the Cities Summit of the Americas, where we've convened leaders to talk about how governments can better deliver for their people. And that mission is at the heart of the migration challenge: How can we all work together, as we are, to provide the foundation for better, more secure, and more hopeful futures for all our citizens?
With that, let me turn it over to Secretary Mayorkas.
SECRETARY MAYORKAS: Good morning. Thank you, Secretary Blinken. As the Secretary described, this is a hemispheric challenge that demands hemispheric solutions. Working with our neighbors in the region, we can and will reduce the number of migrants who reach our southern border. The Regional Processing Centers announced today will be a critical addition to the programs and processes DHS has in place for qualifying individuals to obtain authorization to enter the United States before arriving at our borders.
This is particularly important because we have a humanitarian obligation to cut the smugglers out. We have seen a dramatic rise in the reach, sophistication, and cruelty of the smuggling organizations over the past ten years and the challenges that presents.
The comprehensive plan we have developed and are executing takes this reality into account. We are building lawful pathways for people to come to the United States without resorting to the smugglers. At the same time, we are imposing consequences on those who do not use those pathways and instead irregularly migrate to our southern border.
This plan has proven effective. Building on the success of Uniting for Ukraine, we created parole processes for qualifying Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, and we expelled individuals from these countries who sought to enter at our southern border. We have seen a high degree of interest in these parole processes and a dramatic drop in encounters from these nationalities. Overall, the number of Border Patrol encounters in March 2023 was down 23 percent compared to March of last year. When people have safe and orderly pathways to come to the United States and face consequences for failing to do so, they use those pathways.
After May 11th, our court-compelled use of Title 42 will end and we will once again process all migrants under Title 8 of the United States code. This is a longstanding immigration enforcement authority that multiple administrations - Republican and Democratic alike - have used to process individuals. It carries stiff consequences for irregular migration, including at least a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for repeated attempts to cross unlawfully. The return to processing migrants under Title 8 authorities will be swift and immediate.
We have been preparing for this transition for more than a year and a half. Notwithstanding those preparations, we do expect that encounters at our southern border will increasing, as smugglers are seeking to take advantage of this change and already are hard at work spreading disinformation that the border will be open after that. High encounters will place a strain on our entire system, including our dedicated and heroic workforce and our communities.
The smuggler's propaganda is false. Let me be clear: Our border is not open and will not be open after May 11th.
Today, we are announcing the expansion of our plan to build lawful pathways and to impose consequences for failure to use those pathways.
First, the Department of Homeland Security is proud to work with the State Department in establishing the Regional Processing Centers that Secretary Blinken described. We are dedicating specially trained refugee officers to the centers. They will interview applicants for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and provide for the swift processing of a greater number of individuals. In addition to refugee processing, migrants may be screened at these centers and referred to pursue additional pathways to the United States or to other countries for which they may be eligible.
Second, we are streamlining the long-established family reunification parole processes for Cubans and Haitians so that individuals from these countries with approved family-based petitions can more quickly reunite with their families here in the United States.
