The Trump administration is pausing all immigration applications filed by migrants for a humanitarian program expanded in the Biden era. The administration cited fraud and security concerns as the main reasons for this decision in an internal memo recently obtained by CBS News.
The freeze, which had not been previously reported, will remain in place indefinitely while government officials work to identify potential cases of fraud and enhance vetting procedures to mitigate concerns related to national security and public safety, according to CBS News.
The hold in applications applies to several Biden administration programs that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to the U.S. legally through an immigration law known as parole. For now, it remains unclear how many migrants who were in the process to stay in the U.S. legally temporarily, or permanently, will be affected.
The new administration has been a long-time critic of the Biden era immigration policies, particularly the expansion of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the use of humanitarian parole. In fact, as soon as Trump moved to the White House, he moved quickly to suspend these efforts, arguing they abused the parole authority.
Among the programs impacted is CHNV, which allowed 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans sponsored by American citizens to enter the U.S. Another program consists of processes that permit some Colombians, Ecuadorians, Central Americans, Haitians and Cubans with American relatives to come to the U.S. to wait for a family-based green card to become available.
A third program impacted by the recent freeze is targeted at Ukrainians, called Uniting for Ukraine, which was set up to offer a safe haven to those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Roughly 240,000 Ukrainians with American sponsors arrived in the U.S. under that process before President Trump took office. The move also comes as the Trump administration seemingly cozies up with Putin, largely leaving Ukraine out of key peace negotiations in the war.
The USCIS memo said the move is justified because "currently, fraud information and public safety or national security concerns are not being properly flagged in USCIS' adjudicative systems." The directive also cites the Biden administration's move last year to temporarily pause the parole initiative for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans due to fraud.
In the memo, Andrew Davidson, a top U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services officials, references investigations that he said found thousands of CHNV applications with "serial sponsors," information of deceased individuals or identical addresses. He also said some migrants allowed into the U.S. under CHNV "were not fully vetted."
CBS News' recent report comes after the Trump administration had ordered an immediate end to "final decisions" on applications related to these same programs while the administration reviews them and decides whether to terminate them in late January.
"This suspension on parole decisions is similar to the suspension of all asylum access at the border and the suspension of the refugee program," Yael Schacher, the director of Americas and Europe for Refugees International told The New York Times at the time. "It's a testament to the administration's hostility to all humanitarian immigration."
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