The humanitarian parole program that benefits citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela is close to celebrating its second anniversary, which puts thousands of people closer to the end of their two-year stay permit in the country.
President Joe Biden’s administration announced that will not renew temporary permits of those who have arrived in the country with this program. However, other immigration routes are available for those who want to remain in the United States.
At the end of August, nearly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans had legally arrived in the US through this program. Specifically, more than 111,000 Cubans, almost 214,000 Haitians, more than 96,000 Nicaraguans and 117,000 Venezuelans.
Immigration programs available
When implementing humanitarian parole, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established in the official program document that the two years of parole would allow “individuals to apply for humanitarian assistance or other immigration benefits.”
Cubans, for the most part, have the possibility of requesting the regulation of their status thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Law of 1966, a unique immigration benefit which offers a path to permanent residence one year and one day after arriving in the country, and to US citizenship five years later, only to those who have Cuban nationality and have been legally processed at a port of entry.
For their part, Venezuelans can benefit from the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) which offers relief from deportation and a work permit. To qualify, Venezuelans must have resided in the US on or before July 21, 2023. The initial registration period began on October 3, 2023 and extends until April 2, 2025.
The people of Haiti They can also access a TPS and you have until February 3, 2026 to register.
Nicaraguans and the other three nationalities are eligible to apply for asylum, however, they must be able to demonstrate credible fear of persecution in their countries of origin due to their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion. Those seeking asylum must begin the process within the first year of entering the United States.
DHS states that “those who are not granted asylum or any other immigration benefits during this two-year parole period generally must depart the United States before their authorized parole period expires.”
Those who do not leave the country and have not applied for one of these programs will be placed in deportation proceedings after their legal stay in the country expires, as stipulated in the parole program.
The program recently restarted the processing of travel authorizations that had been stopped due to concerns about cases of fraud that led to a review of the applications.
Applicants to the program must have a financial sponsor in the US, be in their countries of origin and begin the process through the mobile application. The US government promised that up to 30,000 permits would be granted per month to be distributed among the four nationalities.
The humanitarian parole was originally announced on October 12, 2022 and at that time was designed for Venezuelan migrants. Later, in January 2023, it was extended to citizens of Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti as a “safe and legal” way to reach the United States. The four national ones were the most represented in the record numbers of arrivals at that time to the southwest border with Mexico.
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