Biden administration won’t renew parole for immigrants from four countries

Once they arrived on U.S. soil, migrants were given two years to work and apply to stay longer.

“This two-year period was intended to enable individuals to seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible, and to work and contribute to the United States,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Anyone who has not applied for asylum or another status “will need to depart the United States prior to the expiration of their authorized parole period or may be placed in removal proceedings after the period of parole expires,” the statement said.

An official familiar with the program said it is likely that only a small number of people are at imminent risk of losing their parole after two years and could be referred to deportation proceedings, where they could wait years for a decision in the backlogged immigration courts.

The program will continue to admit up to 30,000 new applicants each month, officials said.

Parole is a federal authority created in 1952 to allow the executive branch to admit people on an emergency basis who aren’t eligible to come to the United States. Biden has ignited political divisions by using that power more expansively than any other president.

The announcement caused a political maelstrom Friday as Republicans slammed the Biden administration for making it appear as though it was cracking down on immigration weeks before Vice President Kamala Harris is to face off against former president Donald Trump in the presidential election, where immigration is a key issue.

“Another optics smokescreen from Biden & Harris,” House Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee said Friday in a social media post on X. The post also claimed the program was “fraud-ridden” and complained that few would probably be deported because “there are numerous other ways they could be allowed to stay.”

Meanwhile, some advocates for immigrants worried that large numbers of people would soon face deportation, starting with Venezuelans, though federal records signal that most have probably found other protections.

More than 530,000 people from the four countries have arrived in the United States on commercial through the parole program as of August, with the largest numbers from Venezuela and Haiti, according to the latest figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

It is unclear precisely what happened to all the newcomers, but they had multiple options to find other ways to stay, such as applying for humanitarian protection or legal permanent residency through a relative who is a U.S. citizen.

Cubans, for instance, are eligible to apply for permanent residency, putting them on a path to U.S. citizenship, under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.

The Biden administration also created additional protections for Venezuelans and Haitians once they arrived in the United States by making them eligible for what’s called temporary protected status, or TPS.

Congress created the TPS program — which is different from parole — in 1990 to allow people to live and work in the United States for six to 18 months if their countries are engulfed in emergencies such as war, civil unrest or natural disasters.

More than 544,000 people from Venezuela and Haiti have been granted temporary protected status, allowing Venezuelans to stay through September 2025 and Haitians through February 2026, according to a report issued last month by the Congressional Research Service. Such temporary status may be renewed.

Fewer than 100,000 Nicaraguans could be at risk — but they, too, may apply for asylum or other legal protections to remain in the United States. Even those who may face deportation proceedings will probably remain in the U.S. for years because of severe backlogs in immigration courts and difficulties in sending them back to their home countries.

Nicaragua’s authoritarian government does not readily cooperate with U.S. deportations; fewer than 2,400 people were deported to that country in fiscal year 2023.

Federal officials suspended the parole program for the four countries for several weeks this year amid concerns that some U.S. sponsors, who must apply to bring migrants to the United States, were committing fraud. Officials restarted the program in August after saying they had expanded safeguards.

Angela Kelley, a senior adviser to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said in an interview Friday that parole was a “bridge” to the United States, and Friday’s announcement was a reminder that it is not permanent.

“It’s not shutting down the program,” she said. “It’s putting them on notice that, ‘Hey, you should get that asylum application in. You should talk to a lawyer. You should explore all your options.’”