President
More than 730,000 immigrants have arrived since the Biden administration in 2022 established parole pathways that let US residents sponsor applicants from Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Losing those new arrivals could deal a blow to local businesses and towns that have come to rely on those workers to sustain struggling regions.
“This targets people who did things ‘the right way’ at the time, and the heartening number of Americans who are trying to help them,” said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum.
The Department of Homeland Security this week acknowledged it had suspended all pending benefit requests from participants in the Uniting for Ukraine program, as well as a similar program offering parole for so-called “CNHV” migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, or Venezuela.
The agency had already signaled it would review parole cases to see if immigrants can be put into a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal. Now it’s also frozen new benefits like green cards while it vets those programs for fraud, widening the pool of legal migrants vulnerable to deportation.
Cracking down on illegal immigration was one of the pillars of Trump’s “America first” reelection campaign. Since his inauguration, his administration has also unleashed an unprecedented series of orders designed to shrink, if not collapse, government agencies. And this week, he bluntly blamed Ukraine for the ongoing war with Russia.
But the ramifications of losing new immigrants in US communities where they were welcomed are hard to overstate, said Michael Southam, who launched a group in Fargo, North Dakota, to help resettle Ukrainians.
“That’s potentially hundreds of people that all the sudden aren’t paying taxes, that their employer is having to replace,” he said.
Elected officials may need to create a pathway soon for Ukrainians and other parolees to stay in the US legally and remain safe, Southam said.
National Interest
Presidents for decades have used parole authority to allow foreign nationals without a formal legal status to temporarily enter the country for humanitarian reasons or because it serves a public benefit.
By the end of last year, more than 530,000 immigrants from the CHNV countries had been admitted through parole with US sponsors. Another 215,000 came from Ukraine, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis.
“They have helped fuel American-owned businesses, and the Americans who have invested their time and resources serving as sponsors want them to be able to stay and continue contributing to the revitalization of our communities,” said Anya McMurray, president of Welcome.US, which supports Americans helping refugees resettle in the US.
Sponsors helped them secure work permits, prepare resumes, and find employment, McMurray said. Stripping away their legal status would erase the gains in many communities they’d joined.
The new programs were “one of the smartest innovations” of the Biden presidency because they required buy-in from local sponsors, said Andrea Flores, vice president of immigration policy and campaigns at FWD.us, an advocacy organization that supports bipartisan immigration reform.
Sponsors “signed up because they lived in states where there were jobs to fill,” said Flores, a National Security Council official during the Biden administration. “It also served national security interests by reducing unauthorized immigration from those countries.”
Immigration advocates have already brought court challenges to Trump efforts to curtail Temporary Protected Status and refugee resettlement.
Lawsuits to preserve the Biden parole programs appear unlikely since they were set up at the president’s discretion. Advocates for those immigrants say they’ve yet to see any individuals have existing parole grants canceled, but “they’re highly vulnerable,” Flores said.
“Parole doesn’t provide any deportation protections,” she said. “It’s just a legal status to be in the country for that period of time with a work permit.”
Data from USCIS in December indicated that 90% of CHNV parolees whose parole expired at the end of last year had applied for asylum, TPS, or permanent residency. It’s not clear how many immigrants who entered through those programs still have cases pending, or whether the agency will continue accepting new applications while the hold on new benefits is in place.
Path Forward
Jim Albrecht, president of ComDel Innovation in Wahpeton, North Dakota, hired 35 Ukrainians—12% of the overall workforce—at his company, which manufactures parts for companies in the agribusiness, medical device, and commercial space industries.
Albrecht said he was motivated to get involved by his own family’s history of immigration from Russia to the US and the chance to help people fleeing a foreign occupation. The opportunity also emerged as southeast North Dakota businesses were confronting a tight labor market.
“We became aware of these needs at a time when we were also looking for people to hire,” Albrecht said. “The two just seemed to be a very good fit.”
Before new immigration benefits for parolees were suspended, Albrecht had begun pursuing the green card sponsorship process to enable his workers and their families to stay in the US.
“We will wait and see how this plays out, then deal with whatever results,” he said. “I am hopeful that there is a positive path forward for this class of immigrants.”
If the Trump administration doesn’t support continued use of parole, it should allow those immigrants to switch to a new status like temporary visas or employment-based green cards, said Murray of the National Immigration Forum.
“We are concerned that this will add to the burden for people who are trying to help those who arrived via lawful, orderly pathways,” she said.
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