The US government has announced it will begin turning back Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the US-Mexico border illegally as part of a major re-set of America’s immigration policy.

The move comes as part of an existing effort to stop Venezuelans trying to get in to the US.

Instead, the Biden administration says it will accept a total of 30,000 people per month from the four nations over the next two years and offer work permits to people who come through regular channels, have eligible sponsors and pass vetting and background checks.

Migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela attempting are the source of a rise in attempted border crossings recently.

Announcing the move, President Biden said: “Do not just show up at the border. Stay where you are and apply legally from there.”

The change comes as US border authorities report a surge in people arriving at the border.

Joe Biden

And the change to the immigration rules that will stand even if the US Supreme Court ends the Trump-era public Title 42 health rule, which was purportedly designed to limit the spread of disease by expelling asylum seekers on the southern border.

Under President Biden’s watch, the numbers of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border has risen dramatically

There were more than 2.38 million interception during the US fiscal year that ended on September 30, the first time the number cracked two million.

The Democrat Biden administration has struggled to stem the crossings, reluctant to take hard-line measures that would resemble those of the Trump administration.

This resulted in attacks Republicans who say the Democratic president is ineffective on border security. The new Republican House of Representatives majority has promised congressional investigations.

The new policy could result in 360,000 people from these four nations lawfully entering the US in a year, an unprecedented huge number.

But currently, far more people from those countries are attempting to cross into the US on foot, via boat or by swimming the Rio Grande.

“This new process is orderly, it’s safe and humane, and it works,” President Biden said on a recent trip to El Paso, Texas.

He also announced that Mexico had agreed to accept 30,000 migrants each month from the four countries who attempt to cross the US-Mexico border.

Anyone coming to the US is technically allowed to claim asylum, irrespective of how they crossed the border, and migrants seeking a better life in the US often pay people smugglers thousands of dollars to deliver them across the dangerous Darien Gap.

But the requirements for granting asylum are narrow and only about 30 per cent of applications are granted.

That has meant migrants arrived between ports of entry and are allowed into the US to wait for the resolution of their cases – which can take two years because of an immigration court backlog.

The move has been criticised asylum and immigration advocates.

Meanwhile, President Biden has agreed to triple the number of refugees accepted to the US from the Western Hemisphere to 20,000 from Latin America and Caribbean over the next two years.

Both refugees and asylum seekers have to meet the same criteria to be allowed into the country, but they arrive through different means.