Posted on October 7, 2024

U.S. Won’t Extend Legal Status for 530,000 Migrants Who Arrived Under Biden Program

Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS, October 4, 2024

The Biden administration will not be extending the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who were allowed to fly to the U.S. under a sponsorship program designed to reduce illegal border crossings, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday.

Instead, migrants who have come to the U.S. under the policy will be directed to try to obtain legal status through other immigration programs, leave the country or face deportation proceedings.

The administration first launched the sponsorship program in October 2022 to discourage Venezuelans from traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border by offering them a legal way to enter the country if American-based individuals agreed to sponsor them. It was then expanded in January 2023 to include migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, whose citizens were also crossing the U.S. southern border in record numbers at the time.

As of the end of August, 530,000 migrants from these four countries had flown into the U.S. under the policy, known as the CHNV program, government figures show. They were granted permission to live and work in the U.S. legally for two years under an immigration law known as parole, which presidents can use to welcome foreigners on humanitarian or public interest grounds.

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But the Department of Homeland Security decided against offering migrants who arrived in the U.S. under the CHNV initiative parole extensions, or what the government calls “re-parole.” Instead, these immigrant parolees, as the government calls them, will be given notices instructing them to apply for another immigration benefit or leave the country.

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Some of those who have arrived under the sponsorship policy may be eligible to remain in the U.S. legally through other programs. {snip}

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