The Trump administration said Friday that it has ended a Biden-era program that allows hundreds of thousands of countries in four troubled countries to legally enter the US and work for up to two years.
The program provided applicants in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela with the opportunity to fly to the US and quickly secure work permits if they passed security checks and had financial sponsors. They were allowed to stay for up to 2 years, but it could be renewed.
The program, which was billed by the Biden administration's “legal channel,” was first introduced to Venezuelans in 2022 and expanded the following year to citizens of three other countries.
By the end of 2024, over half a million immigrants had entered the United States through an initiative known as the CHNV Program.
Protection from deportation granted under the authority of a program called parole will expire on April 24th.
The program was expected to end. On President Trump's first day in office, he ordered the Department of Homeland Security to take steps to end it.
But Friday's official notice announces its repeal and casts doubt on its ability to remain in the United States for hundreds of thousands of people who could face serious dangers and economic obsessions if they were forced to return to their home country.
“We're legally taking livelihoods from the thousands of people here, making them undocumented and putting their lives at risk,” said Gearlyn Joseph, executive director of the Haiti Bridge Alliance, an advocacy organization.
“The end of the CHNV parole program and the end of parole for those who exploited it is a return to common sense policy, a return to public safety, and a return to America,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Employers like Amazon and Honda have suffered from a labor shortage and have hired many beneficiaries of the program since its inception.
“These people have come here legally and contributed to the economy,” Joseph said.
A notice from Homeland Security, which is scheduled to be made public on the federal registers on Tuesday, said the program's termination will take effect 30 days later.
“These programs are not useful in the great public interest, are not necessary to reduce the level of illegal immigration, do not adequately reduce the domestic effects of illegal immigration, do not serve their intended purpose, and are inconsistent with the administration's foreign policy goals,” the notice said.
Another unfounded immigrant to stay in the United States must leave the country prior to the end of parole, the notice said. If they don't leave, they could be targeted for deportation by immigration authorities.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s administration has cast a program that survived legal agenda as a way to bring order to the tropical borders by creating alternatives that allow people from four countries to legally enter the country if certain conditions are met.
He said putting pressure on immigration issues in Election Year, the Biden administration has allowed the program to expire last fall.
Another similar parole program created by the Biden administration allowed around 240,000 Ukrainians who were legally infiltrating from the war with Russia and able to temporarily remain in the United States. Earlier this month, Trump said he would soon decide whether to close the program.
The end of the CHNV program comes as the Trump administration has expanded its crackdown on immigrants.
Setare Gandehari, advocacy director for the Rights Group Detention Clock Network, said the development was “in line with the Trump administration's multifaceted strategy of wreaking havoc for immigrant communities and expanding the deportation and detention system.”
Zoran Kanno Yongs Reports of contributions.
