The Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday that it will remove legal protections for hundreds of thousands of individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, potentially leading to their deportation in around a month.
This decision affects approximately 532,000 individuals from these four countries who have arrived in the U.S. since October 2022. They were sponsored financially and granted two-year permits to reside and work in the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated that their legal status will be terminated on April 24 or 30 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.
The new directive impacts individuals who are currently in the U.S. under the humanitarian parole program. This action follows a previous decision by the Trump administration to end what it characterized as the widespread misuse of humanitarian parole, a traditional mechanism used by presidents to permit individuals from nations with conflict or political turmoil to enter and temporarily stay in the U.S.
During his campaign President Donald Trump promised to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally, and as president he has been also ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and to stay.
DHS said parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the U.S. “must depart” before their parole termination date.
“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status,” DHS said.
Before the new order, the beneficiaries of the program could stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer.
The administration decision has already been challenged in federal courts.
A group of American citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programs for the four nationalities.
Lawyers and activists raised their voices to denounce the government’s decision.
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Friday’s action is “going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit at the end of February. She called it “reckless, cruel and counterproductive.”
The Biden administration allowed up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries to come to the United States for two years with eligibility to work. It persuaded Mexico to take back the same number from those countries because the U.S. could deport few, if any, to their homes.
Cuba generally accepted about one deportation flight a month, while Venezuela and Nicaragua refused to take any. All three are U.S. adversaries.
Haiti accepted many deportation flights, especially after a surge of migrants from the Caribbean country in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in 2021. But Haiti has been in constant turmoil, hampering U.S. efforts.
Since late 2022, more than half a million people have come to the U.S. under the policy, also known as CHNV. It was a part of the Biden administration’s approach to encourage people to come through new legal channels while cracking down on those who crossed the border illegally.
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AP editor Elliot Spagat and writer Tim Sullivan contributed to this report.
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