A federal judge issued an order Monday evening blocking the Trump administration from rescinding the Biden administration’s “parole” program for unauthorized migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, saying the move was too “arbitrary.”
Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee to the court in Massachusetts, ordered the government not to move ahead with the cancellations and to discredit the notices already sent to many of the hundreds of thousands of people affected.
She said at the very least the migrants should be allowed to live out their current parole periods without fearing deportation.
“Defendants have offered no substantial reason or public interest that justifies forcing individuals who were granted parole into the United States for a specified duration to leave (or move into undocumented status) in advance of the original date their parole was set to expire,” the judge said.
“Instead, the early termination, without any case-by-case justification, of legal status for noncitizens who have complied with DHS programs and entered the country lawfully undermines the rule of law,” she said.
At issue were migrants allowed into the U.S. by former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who set up a secondary immigration system through parole powers.
Previously parole had been used to allow in migrants who had urgent humanitarian issues, such as an emergency medical need, or who presented a benefit to the U.S., such as helping on a criminal investigation.
Mr. Mayorkas stretched that to cover more than 500,000 migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who lacked legal authorization to enter.
Parole gave them a two-year permission to remain without fear of deportation, as well as the chance to compete for jobs.
The Trump administration decided to revoke the parole.
Judge Talwani said the administration can’t issue such a blanket revocation and instead needs to make an individualized assessment of each case.
The Trump team had argued that the Biden administration stretched parole powers too far and they were restoring the situation back to normal.
Biden officials had justified the program, known as CHNV, by saying it was needed to take pressure off the Border Patrol.
To claim CHNV, migrants had to secure a sponsor in the U.S. and would then fly into an airport, bypassing the southern border.
The program was plagued with fraud.
The Washington Times reported that welfare recipients, criminals and even sex traffickers may have been using the programs to sneak people in. Dead people, gang members and even someone using former first lady Michelle Obama’s passport number were among those who applied to be sponsors.
