The United States Government is terminating the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants and providing them with weeks to leave the nation. The move affects an estimated 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the United States under a program launched in October 2022 by then-President Joe Biden, and subsequently expanded in January last year.
They will no longer enjoy the legal shield 30 days after the Department of Homeland Security order is published in the Federal Register, which will occur on Tuesday. That will compel immigrants who are aided by the program “to depart from the United States” by 24 April if they have not secured another immigration status to remain in the country, the order states.
Welcome.US, an organization that supports those on the run to the United States, urged those affected by the move to “immediately” speak with an immigration lawyer. The Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans initiative, launched in January 2023, opened up entry into the United States for two years for up to 30,000 migrants monthly from the four countries that have dismal human rights records.
According to our sources, Biden pitched the plan as a “safe and humane” way to take pressure off the overcrowded US-Mexico border. But the Department of Homeland Security insisted Friday that the plan was “temporary.”
“Parole is temporary by nature, and parole in and of itself is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status, nor does it constitute an admission to the United States,” it said in the order.
Trump employed unprecented wartime powers last week to deport more than 200 suspected members of a Venezuelan street gang from US detention facilities to El Salvador, which has offered to imprison migrants and even US citizens on auction.
President Donald Trump has promised to crack down on the largest deportation campaign in US history and halt immigration, mainly from countries in Latin America.
