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Jan. 5 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden said the United States will accept up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a new program while continuing to use a Trump-era rule to beef up border security to expel others enter illegally. Biden said a humanitarian "parole" program used for Venezuelan migrants over the summer with the use of a smartphone app will be expanded to those migrating from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua.
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He said others will be turned away under Title 42 in hopes the message will get out and discourage them from making the dangerous trek through Central America into Mexico to reach the U.S. border.
"We should all recognize that as long as America is the land of freedom and opportunity, people are going to try to come here," Biden said in remarks Tuesday afternoon. "And that's what many of our ancestors did. And it's no surprise that it's happening again today.
"We can't stop people from making the journey, but we can require them to come here in an orderly way."
The White House said it will be scaling up its anti-smuggling operations, and expanding coordination and support for border cities and non-governmental organizations. The administration said it is working with Mexico and governments across the Western Hemisphere to slow the tide of migrants traveling to the U.S. southern border.
"While these steps will help address some of the most acute challenges at the Southwest border, they will not solve all of the problems in an immigration system that has been broken for far too long," Biden said, calling on Congress to come up with a comprehensive immigration plan.
The White House said in a statement that until it can remove Title 42 legally, it will continue to bolster new enforcement measures under it to increase security at the border and reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully between ports of entry.
"These measures will expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration and result in new consequences for those who fail to use those legal pathways," the White House said. "They also draw on the success of the Venezuela initiative, which launched in October 2022 and has resulted in a dramatic drop in the number of Venezuelan nationals attempting to enter the United States unlawfully."
Biden will visit El Paso, Texas on Sunday, a border city that has been so swamped with immigrants that Mayor Oscar Leeser declared a state of emergency last month.
He is also set to attend the North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City on Monday and Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the White House's efforts to ditch Title 42, which allows authorities to quickly dispel asylum-seekers at the border.
Republicans used border security as one of the main campaign issues against Biden and the Democrats during the midterm elections. They are expected to continue to make that issue as long as the numbers of those seeking asylum at the southern border remain high.
"I'm pleased President Biden will finally visit our southern border -- which has been completely surrendered to the cartels, smugglers, and human traffickers," Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a Twitter post on Wednesday. "President Biden must go to our southern border and act swiftly to fix the crisis he created."
Drug trafficking and immigration will likely be two of the main topics of discussion at the summit.
