Feds won’t renew humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans

The U.S. government will not renew humanitarian paroles under a Biden program that has allowed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans to come to the United States over the past two years.

That means that people who have used the two-year program to come to the U.S. and who do not have another way to stay will have to leave after spending 24 months here.

Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed to McClatchy and the Miami Herald that the agency will not renew the authorizations originally intended to provide a wave of migrants from Venezuela with a legal pathway to the United States even as the administration clamped down on illegal border crossings. It was modeled after a similar benefit granted to nationals of Ukraine after Russia invaded its neighbor.

After the initial success of the Venezuela program, the administration extended the policy to nationals of Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, allowing them to arrive through U.S. airports as long as they pass health and background checks and have a financial sponsor in the U.S. The program was first announced for Venezuela in October 2022 and later extended to the other three countries in January 2023.

The first paroles granted for Venezuelans will expire later this month, and for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in January 2025. Some migrants, depending when they arrived, will be able to apply for Temporary Protected Status, which offers a reprieve from deportation for nationals from certain countries in turmoil. However, former President Donald Trump has already signaled his intentions to revoke the program — at least for Haitians — should he return to the White House. He attempted to end the protections for several countries during his last administration.

Randy McGrorty, executive director of Catholic Legal Services, told the Herald that humanitarian paroles are intended to be temporary and that people who arrive under them should be thinking about seeking more permanent ways to stay in the country.

The Biden administration has expanded Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans and Haitians. Those who arrived under the parole program between October 2022 and the new dates for their countries’ TPS designation may be able to stay.

Most Cuban arrivals who are paroled can apply for a green card through the decades-old Cuban Adjustment Act.

But those who do not qualify for TPS, establish an asylum case, or have another legal avenue for immigration will have to leave. It’s unclear how many of the 500,000 people who have arrived under the parole program will no longer be entitled to stay in the U.S.

Nicaraguans have not had their TPS redesignated since 1999, when it was granted after Hurricane Mitch caused death and devastation in Central America. Advocates in South Florida have asked the administration to extend it to those who have come in the last two decades amid the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Nicaragua.

Until now, DHS had refused to say what happens after the two years are up for those who entered under the parole program. The decision to end it comes amid a tense election cycle in which immigration is front and center and Trump has accused the Biden administration of losing control of the country’s borders. In recent months, the administration has hardened some immigration policies, including a limit on asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border for those who don’t arrive in official ports of entry.

An agency spokesperson told the Herald that “the two-year period was meant to allow people to seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible, and to work and contribute to the United States.”

“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,” said the spokesperson. Otherwise, those people may be put in deportation proceedings if their parole expires and they haven’t left.

Over half a million people arrived in the U.S. through the program as of the end of August, according to government data.

Patricia Andrade, president of the Venezuela Awareness Foundation, said that the decision to end the parole program “comes at the worst moment,” given the deteriorating situation in Venezuela, as leader Nicolas Maduro cracks down on the political opposition contesting his victory in the presidential elections in July, which are widely considered to have been fraudulent.

The parole program is a key cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s policies to reduce undocumented immigration through the U.S.-Mexico border. Officials credit the program with greatly reducing the volume of encounters with migrants from the four countries, which government data says is down over 99% in the time the measure was put in place.

The Biden administration has renewed a similar parole programs for nationals of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Several presidents have previously used their parole authority to offer immigration protections to people from countries in turmoil.

But the parole program for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti has come under fire from Republicans, who say the policy is an abuse of presidential executive authority. Over a dozen Republican-led states challenged the program in federal court, but a judge in Texas dismissed the lawsuit earlier this year.

Venezuelans in South Florida condemned the decision, saying that it would put many of their countrymen at risk should they be deported back to their home country.

The program was also under scrutiny in August after the Department of Homeland Security temporarily paused it because it identified fraudulent sponsorship applications. However, the agency said it had not detected any issues with the recipients. It resumed the program after creating new safeguards.

“Although it is true that there have been cases of fraud, cases in which the program was abused for profit, in most cases the program has served to help those living here in the United States to have a way to bring their relatives over,” said Jose Antonio Colina, president of the organization of Politically Persecuted Venezuelans in Exile.

He told the Herald that this decision would cause problems because many Venezuelans have not yet found a permanent way to stay in the country or are still in the middle of separate immigration processes.

“This could encourage Venezuelans, in the midst of their desperation due to the crisis that the country is experiencing, to venture out and try to enter the country in a disorganized way, as they did in the past.”