states, and impose tougher consequences on those who choose not to use those pathways works. president biden has led the largest expansion of lawful pathways in decades. people from cuba, haiti, venezuela, and nicaragua, have arrived through lawfully available pathways and we reduce border encounters from these groups by 90% between december of last year and march of this year. we are launching new and expanded family reunification parole processes for nationals of colombia, cuba, el salvador, guatemala, haiti, and the mobile app for individuals to schedule appointments at our ports of entry. to those who do not use our available lawful pathways, we will deliver tougher consequences, using our
you decide who is allowed to avail themselves legal pathways and who isn t on that particular path? parole programs, yes, so, what we did, we met the need with the parole programs that was the demographic that was causing us the greatest challenge at our southern border, and we tailored our parole processes accordingly. is it possible that those nationalities could shift as you see shifting nationalities at the border? so, we have shifted our programs according to the needs that we need to meet. so you ll recall perhaps that in november we developed the parole process for venezuelans, that was then the most significant challenge. we pivoted in january to not only expand the program for venezuelans but also for cubans, haitians and nicaraguans.
president biden end sanctions on cuba and venezuela. do you support that? so the you speak of different demographics arriving at our southern border. this speaks to the fact that the challenge of migration is not exclusive so the southern border and is, in fact, not exclusive to the western hemisphere. sandra: we are going to dip out for just a moment as the news conference continues at the white house. we ll also expect to hear from karine jean-pierre taking questions a moment from now as well. john, off the top saying we are a nation of immigration, immigrants and nation of laws, telling and speaking to the migrants do not risk your life and life savings only to be removed from the united states if you arrive here. pressed a moment ago on the statement. where are you just now sending that message and he said as we look at these live pictures, john, i want to be very clear, our borders are not open. john: he also said in
foreign policy question broadly, quickly. u.s. has sanctions on a series of foreign nations, on cuba, on venezuela, on nicaragua, so the biden administration foreign policy make this situation worse? so, i m going to leave that to our foreign policy specialists but i will say this. the predicate of those principles are separate and apart from the immigration challenge we are facing. given the time you say it s going to take and based on what you are seeing now at the southern border and beyond in mexico, offer some details, paint a picture. what should americans in those border communities and beyond expect in the coming days and weeks? what s this going to look like? we could see very crowded, as we are now, we could see very crowded border patrol facilities. i cannot overstate the strain on our personnel and our facilities. but we know how to manage
not take advantage of our available lawful pathways to enter the united states. we are bolstering the capacity of local governments and ngos. last week we announced the distribution of an additional $332 million to support communities along the southern border and in the interior of our country. and we are going after the smugglers, leading an unprecedented law enforcement disruption campaign that has led to the arrests of more than 10,000 smugglers who mislead and profit from vulnerable migrants. the united states is also working closely with regional partners to impose stiffer consequences at our border, expand lawful pathways for orderly migration and coordinate enforcement efforts. this includes mexico announcing for the first time ever that they will accept the returns under title 8 authorities of nationals of cuba, haiti,