The United States announced on Friday that it would end the legal status of millions of immigrants. US President Donald Trump has vowed to launch the largest deportation campaign in US history, targeting immigrants mainly from Latin American countries.
The order, which will take effect until January next year, will affect about 532,000 citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who came to the United States under a plan launched by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden in October 2022.
They will lose their legal protections 30 days after the US Department of State’s order is published in the Federal Register. This means that immigrants sponsored by the program must “leave the United States” by April 24 unless they obtain another immigration status that allows them to remain in the country, the order said.
Welcome.US, a non-profit organization that supports asylum seekers in the United States, urged those affected by the move to “immediately” seek advice from an immigration lawyer. The Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) program, announced in January 2023, would allow 30,000 immigrants per month from the four countries with serious human rights records to enter the United States for two years.
Biden described the plan as a “safe and humane” way to relieve pressure on the overcrowded U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the plan was “temporary.” The order states, “Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an inherent basis for obtaining any immigration status, nor is it admission to the United States.”
The order would affect most of the 5 million immigrants who entered the United States under the CHNV program, according to California immigration attorney Nicolette Glazer. “Only 75,000 asylum applications were legally filed for this, so the vast majority of CHNV parolees will find themselves eligible for status, work permits, and removal,” he posted on X.
Trump last week invoked rare wartime legislation to fly more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador. More than 7 million Venezuelans have fled their country in the past decade as the oil-rich country’s economy has collapsed under Washington’s leader, Nicolas Maduro.
