Trump admin pulling legal status for more than 530K migrants

The Trump administration will revoke the temporary legal status of more than half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who entered the U.S. legally, according to a notice posted Friday in the Federal Register.

The roughly 532,000 migrants have been told to leave the country before their humanitarian parole and accompanying work permits are canceled on April 24, giving them a month from when the notice is formally published on March 25.

The migrants were allowed to fly directly to the U.S. after applying from abroad under a policy started during the Biden administration that was designed to open legal migration pathways, but President Donald Trump suspended the program when he returned to office in January.

The program, CHNV, allowed the migrants and their immediate family members to fly into the U.S. if they had American sponsors. They could then remain in the country for two years under a temporary immigration status known as parole.

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Launched in 2022, the program first applied to Venezuelans before it was expanded to additional countries.

The Biden administration had argued that CHNV would help reduce illegal crossings at the southern border and allow better vetting of people entering the country amid an influx of migrants entering through the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security criticized the Biden administration on Friday, arguing that the program failed to achieve its goals, the BBC reported.

The agency said in a statement that Biden officials had “granted them [migrants] opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers; forced career civil servants to promote the programs even when fraud was identified; and then blamed Republicans in Congress for the chaos that ensued and the crime that followed.”

But the notice in the Federal Register said some migrants in the U.S. under CHNV may be allowed to remain in the country on a case-by-case basis.

CHNV helped about 213,000 Haitians enter the U.S. amid deteriorating conditions in their home country, as well as more than 120,700 Venezuelans, 110,900 Cubans and more than 93,000 Nicaraguans, according to the BBC.

Last month, DHS announced plans to end another immigration designation, temporary protected status, or TPS, for 500,000 Haitians living in the U.S. legally. TPS was given to migrants from designated countries facing unsafe conditions, including armed conflict.

The agency also ended TPS for Venezuelans living in the U.S., although this is being challenged in court.

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Trump’s efforts to remove legal and illegal migrants from the U.S. since taking office in January as part of his immigration agenda have faced numerous legal obstacles.

The Trump administration is also reportedly dismantling internal watchdogs for DHS, including its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which investigated allegations of abuse and discrimination within immigration enforcement, according to Bloomberg News.