Federal government restarts parole program for Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua

The Biden administration has relaunched a humanitarian parole program for Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti and has strengthened the process’ security measures after the government found some fraudulent applications.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it would restart approving travel documents so people from the four countries could fly here as part of the process, which allows migrants to live and work in the United States as long as they have a financial sponsor and pass background checks.

The federal government had temporarily halted the program several weeks ago because some sponsorship applications had raised alarms that they could be fraudulent. Now, the U.S.-based sponsors will have to submit fingerprints, and could also be subject to additional screening of their financial and criminal histories. The agency will also carry out “bolstered review methods” to identify supporters who file applications en masse.

“Together with our existing rigorous vetting of potential beneficiaries seeking to travel to the United States, these new procedures for supporters have strengthened the integrity of these processes and will help protect against exploitation of beneficiaries,” said a spokesperson for DHS.

Over half a million people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela have come to the U.S. through the parole process as of the end of July 2024, according to federal government data. The Biden administration first launched the program for Venezuela in October 2022 and then expanded it to the other three countries in January of 2023.

It’s part of a package of policies the White House has rolled out to curb irregular immigration from these countries, which have largely driven migration at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. Homeland Security reports that encounters of nationals from these four countries with U.S. Border Patrol were down 98% compared to December 2022.

Fraud concerns halt parole program for Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans

The pause of the program came after Homeland Security conducted an internal review of parole process applications. While the agency did not identify any issues with beneficiaries, it did find red flags among supporters, such as serial sponsorship applications and fake social security numbers.

Only a very small slice of the sponsors were referred to law enforcement because of criminal or fraudulent activity. The majority of applications that raised alarm were resolved without issue, and were due to innocuous causes such as a typo. However, DHS said it paused the program out of an abundance of caution.