President Trump moved on Monday to end a Biden-era program that allowed migrants fleeing four troubled countries to fly to the United States and stay temporarily, part of a sweeping first-day crackdown on immigration.
Known as humanitarian parole, the program, introduced by the Biden administration in early 2023, allowed migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela to fly to the United States if they had a financial sponsor and passed security checks. Migrants enrolled in the program could stay for up to two years unless they found other ways to stay longer.
According to the information of the end of last year, more than 500 thousand migrants entered the country with this initiative.
The program, which Mr. Trump ordered the head of the Department of Homeland Security to end, served as one of two key legal avenues the Biden administration has put in place to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. The Trump administration already moved on Monday to shut down another program — a government app that allows migrants to make appointments to enter the country at legal ports of entry.
“These processes — a safe and orderly way to reach the United States — have resulted in a significant reduction in the number of these individuals found at our southern border,” Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security in the Biden administration, said last spring. “This is a key element in our efforts to address the unprecedented level of migration in our hemisphere.”
Republican lawmakers have billed the program as an opportunity for migrants who have no other access to the United States to enter the country for up to two years and obtain work permits.
“Here's an idea: Don't fly millions of illegal aliens thousands of miles away from failing states to small towns across America's Heartland,” Stephen Miller, the architect of much of Mr. Trump's immigration policy, said on social media in September.
Texas, along with other Republican-led states, sued to end the program and failed. But the Biden administration already said in October that it would allow migrants from four countries to cut permits after two years, forcing hundreds of thousands to find other ways to stay in the country or face deportation.