03/13/2024
Last week, a district court ruled in favor of preserving President Biden’s parole policy for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV). Immigration parole has been used to provide critically needed, often urgent relief, to populations in desperate need — be it Afghans fleeing their country as Kabul fell to the Taliban, Jews fleeing religious persecution in the 20th century, or Ukrainians fleeing their country in recent years.
The policy has been used to great success and should continue to be expanded to more countries in the future. It is a long-standing immigration authority that allows the President to permit individuals to temporarily enter the United States for an approved period of time. In January 2023, the Biden administration established the CHNV parole process as a new legal migration pathway to allow up to 30,000 qualified individuals from these four countries to be paroled each month.
This is a huge win for supporters of safe and orderly migration to the United States, and it was due in no small part to the efforts of advocates like the Justice Action Center, RAÍCES, and UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CLIP). CHNV parole is a model program that relieves pressure on the border and allows parole recipients to come to the United States with the support of an American financial sponsor.
The program’s success and resilience demonstrates it can be a model for building legal pathways that will constitute a viable, politically sustainable immigration system for our country. The district court’s decision means that all three branches of government have recognized the impact of President Biden’s parole policy in reducing unauthorized migration and opening up a safe new legal immigration pathway.
Share the news of this victory today to help us celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of immigration parole.
The program is a resounding success:
By providing a legal pathway, the program has allowed hundreds of thousands of people an orderly and safe process to live and work temporarily in the U.S. without having to make an extremely dangerous journey to the border.
Irregular migration from some of these countries dropped, in some cases, by over 90% after the policy was put into place.
A recent survey of CHNV-paroled migrants found 88% plan to be in the workforce when work permits are received, and only 3% rely on organizations or local governments for assistance.
Individuals who have qualified for the CHNV policy are helping relieve pressure on big cities by dispersing migrants throughout the country — paroled migrants are living and working in as many as 27 states — relying on support from their sponsors and not the government, boosting local economies, and quickly establishing strong ties to their new communities.
We’ll continue encouraging the Biden administration to expand the use of legal pathways that help vulnerable people seek safety, strengthen U.S. communities and our workforce, and improve conditions at the border.
Spread the word about this big win for legal immigration pathways today.
Thank you,
