The Trump administration is revoking the legal status for over 500,000 immigrants flown into the U.S. under a controversial Biden administration program and urged them to self-deport or face imminent arrest.
Immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela brought to the U.S. through the Biden administration’s CHNV program will be losing their parole programs first announced in 2022 and 2023, the Department of Homeland Security said in a notice set to go into effect next month.
“These are the 530,000 illegal immigrants that Joe Biden flew to the United States on the taxpayers [sic] dime. They’re welcome to self-deport using the newly repurposed CBP Home App!” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X, responding to a CBS News report on the notice. CBS News first reported in February about the Trump administration’s plan to terminate the legal status of aliens brought into the U.S. through CHNV.
The Trump administration’s CBP Home App provides resources to illegal immigrants seeking to self deport. It is a repurposed version of the Biden administration’s CBP One App that helped illegal immigrants get across the southern border.
CHNV allowed illegal immigrants to bypass the southern border on their way into the U.S. and receive two-year work permits that Biden allowed to expire in late 2024. An estimated 532,000 aliens entered the U.S. under the program, which was rife with fraud and poor vetting of participants. Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are all ruled by socialist dictators and Haiti is experiencing a long-standing domestic political crisis.
The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee said in a report last year that 3 million CHNV applications were filed, including 80,000 for aliens living outside of the countries CHNV covered. DHS temporarily suspended the program last year because of mounting instances of fraud after a watchdog organization released internal analysis showing widespread abuse of the application system.
The DHS analysis found that thousands of CHNV applications featured replicated Social Security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, and text responses. Over 460 non-existent zip codes were used on over 2,800 applications and some electronically filed applications had the same IP addresses, with a high percentage of them female, potentially raising the issue of sex trafficking.
Additionally, the Judiciary Committee viewed nonpublic DHS data showing applications were approved for migrants engaging in criminal behavior or relying on welfare to make ends meet. The Biden administration also allowed non-citizens to be supporters for CHNV candidates and take responsibility for filing their applications, creating a mechanism for chain migration.
The Biden administration used 50 airports nationwide to airlift the CHNV migrants into the U.S. and process them, according to DHS documents revealed by the House Homeland Security Committee. DHS admitted in the documents that none of the aliens enrolled in CHNV had a legal basis to enter the U.S. before becoming parolees.
Haitian migrants became a hot topic during the 2024 presidential campaign because of the impacts significant Haitian populations were having on small middle American towns such as Springfield, Ohio, and Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Concerns about migrant populations overwhelming the resources and communities of small towns were paired with unfounded speculation that Haitians were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, claims that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance amplified during the campaign.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Homan are leading Trump push to mass deport illegal immigrants and shut down the southern border. To begin with, federal authorities are focusing on deporting violent criminals and gang members, some of whom are affiliated with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, a gang the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist group.
Already, border crossings have plunged to historic lows because of Trump’s rhetoric and executive actions to dramatically increase law enforcement resources.