The Biden administration will not renew a temporary humanitarian entry program for hundreds of thousands of migrants with U.S. sponsors who arrived in recent years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Friday.
Some 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have entered the U.S. by air since October 2022 and received two-year grants under the “parole” program that will begin to expire in coming weeks.
However, many of those migrants could remain in the country under other programs.
The parole program allows migrants with existing U.S. sponsors to enter the country for humanitarian reasons or if their entry is deemed a significant public benefit. It will continue to accept new applications from those abroad.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration launched the parole program as a way to provide migrants avenues to enter legally and decrease illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. Record numbers of migrants were caught crossing illegally during Biden’s presidency but crossings have plummeted in recent months as Biden rolled out new border restrictions.