More than 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) will not be allowed to extend their temporary legal status granted by the Harris-Biden administration, US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday.
Under the controversial mass parole program, migrants from those four nations who meet certain criteria have been allowed to fly into US ports of entry, where they receive work permits and authorization to remain in the country for two years.
The change will force migrants from CHNV nearing the end of their parole term to self deport or enroll in another federal program offering legal status.
“As initially stated in the Federal Register notices, a grant of parole under these processes was for a temporary period of up to two years,” a US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson said in a statement.
“This two-year period was intended to enable individuals to seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible, and to work and contribute to the United States,” the statement continued. “Those who do not have pending immigration benefits or who have not been granted an immigration benefit during their two-year parole period will need to depart the United States prior to the expiration of their authorized parole period or may be placed in removal proceedings after the period of parole expires.”
The CHNV parole program, which has been plagued by rampant fraud, will continue to accept new applications for temporary legal status.
The program was halted for about a month earlier this year after an internal review found that thousands of sponsors for the migrants were listing fake social security numbers or phone numbers and using the same physical address for thousands of parole applications.
“Some 100 addresses were listed on over 19,000 forms,” the USCIS review found, and “many applications were submitted by the same IP address.”
The House Homeland Security Committee on Friday expressed doubt that the Harris-Biden administration would take any significant steps to actually remove CHNV migrants that remain in the country after their parole expires.
“They will likely apply for asylum, Temporary Protected Status, or, given ICE’s low enforcement rates under this administration, simply not be priorities for removal,” the committee posted on X. “This lack of enforcement is part of the reason the Non-Detained Docket has doubled in size since the Trump admin.”
The House panel notes that according to the most recent Department of Homeland documents provided to the committee there were some 1.6 million migrants waiting for approval to fly into the US via the parole program as of October 2023.