Democrats forced a government shutdown this week to preserve health care for illegal aliens who should have been deported by the Biden administration but were instead “paroled” en masse in one of the greatest abuses of executive power in modern times.
Under federal immigration law, foreign nationals who illegally enter the United States must be detained and deported. However, the law also grants the Department of Homeland Security secretary the authority to parole certain illegal aliens on a case-by-case basis, based on “urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit,” according to the United States Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS). As explained by the USCIS, parole “is not intended to be used solely to avoid normal visa processing procedures and timelines, to bypass inadmissibility waiver processing, or to replace established refugee processing channels.”
That’s what makes the Biden administration’s decision to parole millions of otherwise inadmissible aliens into the U.S. so egregious. The administration twisted the law beyond recognition, handing out parole status to nearly 3 million illegal foreign nationals. According to a report from the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, the Biden administration — in an attempt to cover up the border crisis it provoked — “created, without Congressional authorization, what it called ‘lawful pathways’ for illegal aliens to enter the U.S.”
The report explains that the administration created a parole program specifically for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV).
“Through CHNV, each month up to 30,000 aliens, who otherwise have no basis to enter the country … can bypass the U.S. border and fly directly into the country … to be ‘granted parole’ for a period of two years. …”
This was an unprecedented abuse of the parole power. More than 500,000 aliens from just these four countries used this specific program to enter the U.S. — not withstanding the other millions of aliens the administration paroled via other avenues, such as granting more than 1 million foreign citizens Temporary Protected Status. As North Carolina Congressman Addison McDowell explained, the Biden administration “bypass[ed] visa procedures” and ignored background checks.
In doing so, the Biden administration made these millions of otherwise illegal aliens eligible for federal health care. It’s these foreign nationals for whom Democrats shut down the government this week.
As the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s Ira Mehlman told Blaze News : “Illegal aliens who have been granted parole, [Temporary Protected Status], or DACA qualify for these benefits because — while they remain illegal aliens — they are lawfully present. Under the Biden administration, millions of illegal aliens were paroled into the country or granted TPS and have been able to access these benefits.”
Republicans wanted to stop the abuse, and so in the One Big Beautiful Bill, they passed a provision that narrowed the eligibility requirements for government health care benefits like Medicaid. In doing so, House Republicans restricted certain foreign nationals — like the nearly 3 million otherwise inadmissible aliens who received blanket parole into the United States by the Biden administration — from getting free federal health care.
Democrats have now shut the government down, demanding that provision be repealed. They are willingly letting American workers go without pay, disrupting services, and grinding the federal government to a stop so that millions of otherwise inadmissible aliens — who only gained lawful presence through Biden’s blatant abuse of the system — can keep their place on Medicaid rolls.
Democrats can play word games all they want, but Americans know that these migrants were inadmissible, should have been deported, but instead were handed a new label to cover up for the Biden-Harris’ disastrous and lawless policies.
This shutdown is about protecting benefits for people who should have never been here in the first place.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2