The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it would revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month.
The order applies to approximately 532,000 people from four countries who have come to the United States since October 2022. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two years of permission to live and work at Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem.
The new policies will affect those who are already in the United States and have participated in humanitarian parole programs. It follows the previous Trump administration’s decision to end what is called “broad-based abuse” of humanitarian parole. The longtime legal tool president used it to allow people from countries where there is war or political instability to enter the United States and temporarily live.
During his campaign, President Donald Trump has pledged to illegally deport millions of people in the United States, and as president, he has ended the legal pathway for immigrants to come and stay in the United States.
DHS said parolees without legal basis who remain in the United States must “depart” before the end of parole.
“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole is not the fundamental basis for achieving immigration status,” DHS said.
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Before the new order, the program’s beneficiaries were able to stay in the United States until parole expired, but the administration stopped processing applications for asylum, visas and other requests.
The administration’s decision has already been challenged in federal courts.
A group of American citizens and immigrants is suing the Trump administration to end humanitarian parole and seeking to revive programs of four nationalities.
Lawyers and activists spoke up to condemn the government’s decision.
Friday’s actions, Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organisations that filed the lawsuit at the end of February, said Friday’s actions would “provoke unnecessary disruption and heartbreak for families and communities across the country.” She called it “reckless, cruel and counterproductive.”
The Biden administration has allowed up to 30,000 people from four countries to come to the United States for two years a month. As the US could almost be deported to their homes, Mexico persuaded them to regain the same numbers from those countries.
Cuba generally accepted deportation flights once a month, with Venezuela and Nicaragua rejecting nothing. All three are enemies of the United States.
Haiti has accepted many deportations, particularly after a surge in immigration from the Caribbean state, located in a small border town in Del Rio, Texas, in 2021.
Since late 2022, over half a million people have come to the United States under a policy also known as CHNV. It was part of the Biden administration’s approach to encouraging people to pass new legal channels while encouraging people to illegally crack down on people across borders.
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AP editor Elliot Spagat and author Tim Sullivan contributed to this report.
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