Immigrants admitted to the US from a Biden-era parole program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have begun receiving notices of termination urging them to depart the US.
Participants in the “CHNV” parole program were also told that their employment authorization is revoked effective immediately in email messages from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency said Thursday.
The notices follow a US Supreme Court decision last month allowing DHS to move forward with revocation of parole benefits for half a million immigrants after a lower court preserved the protections. A legal challenge to the Trump administration’s dismantling of parole programs including the CHNV process is still ongoing.
Revoking parole benefits is part of a larger effort by the administration to terminate temporary immigration protections that expanded in recent years. It has also terminated Temporary Protected Status designations that shielded immigrants from Venezuela, Afghanistan, Nepal and Cameroon from deportation.
The revocation notices announcement came the same day President Donald Trump said he would issue an order to protect farmworkers from deportation in response to demands from agricultural producers.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that the Biden administration hadn’t properly vetted immigrants admitted through the program, and that paroled immigrants had undercut American workers.
“Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First,” she said in a statement.
The Biden administration launched the CHNV program in 2023 to reduce irregular migration to the US-Mexico border and give people an orderly way to flee humanitarian crises in the four countries.
Applications far exceeded the 30,000 slots available each month, and US businesses hired the parolees in hard-to-fill jobs across the country. Industries including construction and healthcare are likely to face new worker shortages after the parolees’ work permits are canceled.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said the immigrants receiving termination notices this week had played by the rules and already passed security screenings and secured legal work authorization.
“Instead of rewarding responsible migration through orderly legal pathways, this action punishes those who jumped through every hoop asked of them,” she said in a statement.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services just this week lifted a freeze on pending benefits requests—like asylum claims and visa applications—for parolees in response to a court order. Processing of benefits was frozen in February, cutting off other legal immigration options weeks before the Trump administration announced the termination of parole benefits.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Kreighbaum in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jay-Anne B. Casuga at [email protected]; Genevieve Douglas at [email protected]
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
