 "Venezuelan asylum seekers at a welcoming center for migrants in downtown Brownsville, Texas, US, October 21, 2023. File Photo/Reuters")
The Donald Trump administration in the United States will rescind the legal protections of lakhs of migrants. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Friday (March 21) that it will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
These migrants were welcomed to the US under the previous Joe Biden administration’s two-year “parole” programme, known as CHNV. This is the latest step by President Trump to curb immigration, which includes clamping down on legal pathways for migrants to enter the US.
Let’s take a closer look.
What is CHNV?
Former US President Joe Biden launched a sponsorship programme in 2022 for Venezuelans to legally enter America. The scheme was extended to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in 2023 as the Biden administration struggled to control illegal immigration from these nationalities.
The programme allowed migrants to fly into the US for a temporary stay of two years if they had American sponsors. This gave them temporary immigration status known as parole, allowing them to live and work in the US.
During the two years, migrants could seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits if they were eligible.
President Biden’s administration allowed up to 30,000 people every month to enter the US from these four countries. As many as 530,000 migrants came to America through the humanitarian parole programme.
Of these, 213,000 were Haitians who arrived in the US amid worsening conditions in their country. Over 120,700 Venezuelans, 110,900 Cubans and more than 93,000 Nicaraguans also flew to the US under the parole programme.
The Biden administration had defended CHNV, saying it provided legal migration pathways and would curb illegal border crossings at the southern US border. It also allowed for better vetting of these migrants, it said.
Trump shut the Biden-era sponsorship policy soon after returning to the White House in January.
US ends legal protection of CHNV nationals
The Trump administration has asked nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) who came to the US through the parole programme to self-deport or face deportation.
According to the notice posted to the Federal Register on Friday, the temporary legal status of 530,000 migrants will be cancelled on April 24.
The Department of Homeland Security said it will arrest and deport parolees who fail to depart the US by the deadline.
“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status,” DHS said.
Hitting out at the previous Biden administration, the agency said it “granted them [migrants] opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers; forced career civil servants to promote the programs even when fraud was identified; and then blamed Republicans in Congress for the chaos that ensued and the crime that followed”.
It said stripping their parole status would help the administration to put the migrants in a fast-track deportation process known as “expedited removal.”
According to DHS, some migrants who came via the CHNV parole programme might be allowed to stay in the US on a “case-by-case basis”.
Before this order, beneficiaries of the programme could remain in America until the expiration of their parole. However, the Trump administration had put a halt on processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that would prolong their stay.
As per CBS News, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin claimed that migrants who entered the US via the CHNV process were “loosely vetted”.
“The termination of the CHNV parole programs, and the termination of parole for those who exploited it, is a return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First,” McLaughlin said.
The Trump administration could also deport Ukrainians who fled to the US during the war with Russia. On March 6, the US president said he would decide “very soon” whether to revoke the parole status for 240,000 Ukrainians in the US.
The Trump administration has previously railed against alleged “broad abuse” of humanitarian parole, which has been used by presidents to allow people from countries facing war or political instability to temporarily live in the US.
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Trump’s order faces legal challenges
The Trump administration’s order asking CHNV beneficiaries to leave has already been challenged in federal courts. A bunch of American citizens and immigrants have sued the Trump administration over the decision and are seeking to reinstate parole for the four nationalities.
The order is “going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country”, Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
It remains unclear how many CHNV beneficiaries have been able to get another form of protection or legal status that would allow them to stay in the US legally.
With inputs from agencies