The Biden administration announced Thursday it will restart a controversial parole policy that allows tens of thousands of immigrants into the United States each month, after it was suspended last month following revelations of significant fraud within some of the program.
The Department of Homeland Security said it is resuming parole proceedings for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) after “incorporating additional vetting of U.S.-based supporters to strengthen the integrity of the proceedings.”
“With these updated procedures, DHS is resuming issuance of new Advance Travel Authorizations and will closely monitor how this new process works going forward,” a spokesperson said.
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at the daily press briefing at the White House on July 15, 2024. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital first reported this month that the administration suspended the issuance of advance travel authorizations in July for the program, which allows 30,000 nationals from those countries to travel to the U.S. each month and enter legally under the administration’s use of parole beginning in early 2023.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed to Fox News Digital that “out of an abundance of caution” it has stopped issuing the authorizations and that it takes abuse of process very seriously.
The pause came after an internal report, parts of which were made public by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, found that 100,948 forms were completed by 3,218 serial sponsors – those whose number appears on 20 or more forms.
Twenty-four of the 1,000 most frequently used numbers were also found to belong to a deceased person. Meanwhile, 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on more than 19,000 forms. Those addresses included storage units. The focus is on problems with applications from supporters, and not on applications from the program’s beneficiaries themselves.
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Migrants arrive at a makeshift camp after crossing the border from Mexico on February 23, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
On Thursday, DHS said the new investigative measures include “increased scrutiny of supporters’ financial records and criminal histories, additional vetting to identify fraudulent profiles of supporters, and enhanced review methods to identify serial filing trends.” DHS will also require fingerprints from supporters.
“Along with our ongoing 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 beneficiary exploitation,” the statement said.
The Biden administration has claimed that expanded use of parole processes has led to a drop in illegal border crossings, including a 98% decrease in CHNV nationals compared to December 2022.
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But Republicans have criticized the government’s use of parole, arguing that it represents an abuse of the parole process, the use of which is authorized on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefits.
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House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said the resumption was not a surprise, despite the fraud revelations.
“The CHNV program, coupled with the use of the CBP One app at the southwest border, has helped the President and his border czar play a massive game of deception, encouraging otherwise inadmissible aliens to simply cross at ports of entry rather than between them,” she said in a statement. “My committee has been in contact with the department since this pause was announced, and the results were disheartening. Rather than scrap the clearly flawed program, the department is allowing it to continue without rooting out fraud or putting in place adequate safeguards to prevent exploitation by sponsors here in the United States.”
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“But, fundamentally, there would be no fraud to prevent if DHS simply stopped importing 30,000 inadmissible aliens each month from the beginning,” he added.
