In a marked shift from previous administrations, President Biden’s team has allowed nearly half a million migrants to enter the U.S. This substantial increase in numbers has been attributed to the expansion of immigration programs, as reported by CBS News on Tuesday.
Accurate to government statistics, court records, and public reports, at least 541,000 migrants, in absence of visas, have been given the green light to enter the country via parole in less than two years. Parole is an instrument of discretion utilized by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), typically for cases necessitating humanitarian relief or providing significant public benefit.
The Biden administration has employed parole as a cornerstone strategy in handling the substantial rise of unauthorized immigration at the southern border. The usage of parole on such a scale and within this time frame has been described as “unprecedented” by Doris Meissner, a seasoned U.S. immigration official who served during the Reagan and Clinton years, as per the CBS News report.
Breaking down the figures, the administration granted parole to 168,400 Latin American and Caribbean migrants with U.S. sponsors, 141,200 refugees from Ukraine who had American sponsors, and 133,000 asylum-seeking migrants who were vetted at southern border entry points. Also included were 77,000 Afghan evacuees and 22,000 Ukrainians present at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Afghan nationals began receiving permission for parole entry after the Biden administration evacuated scores who were escaping the imminent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.
Subsequently, in April 2022, “Uniting for Ukraine” was launched to permit Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion to enter the U.S. for two years, provided they had a sponsor. As CBS News pointed out, this was followed by them being paroled via the southern border after traveling to Mexico.
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Continuing this pattern, in October 2022, parole programs were initiated for Venezuelans, followed by Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. This was the administration’s response to the escalating influx of unauthorized immigrants from these nations towards the southern border.
A phone application, CBP One, was later employed to schedule entry appointments at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. The reach of this program has since been broadened, currently permitting around 40,000 entries per month.
León Rodríguez, who served as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during President Obama’s second term, noted that the “pressures are much greater now,” hence the scale of these parole programs. This scale, he said, is “probably the largest we’ve seen, certainly in a long time.”
Looking forward, it is projected that the Biden administration will continue to lean heavily on parole authority, potentially extending its programs to allow migrants from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who have relatives in the U.S., as confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security.
Republican states, however, lodged lawsuits against the said program, alleging that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is operating “under the false pretense of preventing aliens from unlawfully crossing the border between the ports of entry.”
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