Countdown starts for Biden parole beneficiaries from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela

Syra Ortiz Blanes, Miami Herald on Mar 25, 2025

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The Trump administration started the clock running Tuesday on when the paroles of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that legally came to the United States through Biden-era humanitarian programs will expire.

Beneficiaries of the program — which allowed over half a million nationals from the four countries to live and work here for two years as long as they passed health and background checks — must leave by April 24 if they don’t have another ongoing immigration process that would let them stay here.

A Federal Register notice was published Tuesday officially announcing that the program — known as CHNV for the initials of the four nationalities involved — has been revoked and beneficiaries will be undocumented in 30 days.

“DHS generally intends to remove promptly aliens who entered the United States under the CHNV parole programs who do not depart the United States before their parole termination date and do not have any lawful basis to remain in the United States,” reads the register notice.

The Biden administration had already announced that beneficiaries of the program would not be able to renew their stay and would need to leave by the end of the two-year parole period if they did not have another legal pathway, like a family-based green-card application or a pending asylum case. But now, the Trump administration has set an end to the program for all beneficiaries, regardless of when their paroles are set to expire.

Beneficiaries whose parole doesn’t end before April 24 could be protected from having to leave if a federal judge blocks the Trump termination in an ongoing lawsuit. Otherwise, the shut down of the program marks the end of a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, as President Donald Trump aims to aggressively restrict both legal and illegal immigration.

Since coming into office, the Trump administration has eliminated work permits and deportation protections for Venezuelans under Temporary Protected Status, eliminated an 18-month extension of TPS for Haitians, and put the United States refugee program on pause.

In the federal register notice, the Department of Homeland Security said it would prioritize for deportation people who, prior to the publication, had not properly filed for an immigration benefit such as TPS or a crime-victim visa or have not had someone else apply for a benefit on their behalf, like an employment or family-based visa. Paroles could also be extended on a case-by-case determination by the secretary of Homeland Security, according to the notice.

The end of the program has also thrown beneficiaries of the program as well as their loved one into uncertainty and disarray. The Trump administration recently paused processing green card applications, asylum requests and other immigration benefits for beneficiaries of the Biden-era parole programs, according to CBS News.

On Tuesday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to the Miami Herald in a statement that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had put a “temporary pause” on “certain Adjustment of Status applications, pending the completion of additional screening and vetting.” The spokesperson said the measure was put in place to comply with a Trump executive order to protect the country against cartels and foreign terrorists.

The Biden administration created the humanitarian parole process for Venezuelans in October 2022, and three months later expanded it to Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians. As of December 2024, the last month Biden was in office, 110,240 Cubans, 211,040 Haitians, 93,070 Nicaraguans, and 117,330 Venezuelans had flown to the United States under the program.

Trump and other top Republican officials sharply criticized the program at the time, saying that it was an overreach of executive authority. Biden officials defended the program as a way to reduce irregular immigration from the four countries, a large source of migration to the U.S. through the Mexico border, while expanding available legal pathways.

Presidents have long used similar programs to temporarily allow people from countries in turmoil in, including people from China and the Soviet Union, into the U.S.

The federal register notice said the programs “do not serve a significant public benefit” and were inconsistent with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals.