WASHINGTON – United States President Donald J. Trump has revoked the humanitarian parole programme, known as the CHNV programme, for people from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
“This decision will categorically end the protection and legal status of 530,000 people who arrived in the United States under parole status,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).
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He said the CHNV programme allowed qualified nationals from these countries to live and work in the US through sponsorship by a US citizen or permanent resident for two years.
wawdeh said the programme will end on April 24, 2025, when those in the programme will lose status and work authorization.
“Impacted community members are advised to seek qualified legal counsel to explore alternative paths for lawful status such as asylum, TPS (Temporary Protected Status), or lawful permanent residence or risk deportation,” he said.
“The Trump administration’s decision to revoke the CNHV humanitarian parole programme is a devastating betrayal of the immigrants who were legally permitted to seek safety and build their lives in the United States.
“This programme provided a crucial lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing political persecution and violence, offering them temporary protection and the opportunity to start over and contribute to their new communities,” he added. “
Awawdeh said the Trump administration is “actively and recklessly stripping people of legal protections to meet their mass deportation agenda – at the expense of our local economies, and community and family stability”.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it is “terminating the categorical parole programmes for inadmissible aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and their immediate family members, hereinafter referred to as ‘CHNV parole programmes’ that DHS announced in 2022 and 2023.
“DHS is terminating the CHNV parole programs as of March 25, 2025. The temporary parole period of aliens in the United States under the CHNV parole programs and whose parole has not already expired by April 24, 2025 will terminate on that date, unless the Secretary makes an individual determination to the contrary,” the notice states.
“Parolees without a lawful basis to remain in the United States following this termination of the CHNV parole programs must depart the United States before their parole termination date,” it added.
The notice states that, over the previous two years, DHS has implemented programmes through which “inadmissible aliens who are citizens or nationals of designated countries, and their immediate family members, could request authorization to travel to the United States in order to be considered for parole into the country.
“Under these categorical parole programmes, potentially eligible beneficiaries were adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, for advance authorization to travel to a US port of entry in the interior of the country to seek a discretionary grant of parole,” it adds. (CMC)
