With serious implications for thousands of immigrants in South Florida, the Department of Homeland Security said late Friday it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month.
The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the United States since October 2022. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.
The Trump administration's decision will affect thousands of legal immigrants in South Florida who qualified for the 'humanitarian parole" program created by the administration of former President Joe Biden.
READ MORE: Venezuelans call Biden's humanitarian parole their ‘best hope’ — but ‘the waiting hurts’
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, called the administration's action a "heartless act [that] will rip apart South Florida families from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua."
Her congressional district includes most of south Broward County and has tens of thousands of immigrants, including one of the nation's largest Venezuelan-American communities in Weston.
"This just artificially increases the number of undocumented people, significantly disrupts our local economy, and spreads toxic fear and anxiety through entire communities for 500,000 people, whose status in our country is now in grave legal jeopardy," she said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Miramar, the only Haitian-American member of Congress, called the administration move an “irresponsible decision [that] will jeopardize our national security and significantly damage the economies of numerous communities nationwide.”
“The abrupt removal of nearly half a million individuals is inhumane, irrational, and it will have an irreparable impact on businesses across the country and our economy at large,” she said in a statement “strongly urging the Administration to reverse course immediately.”
On X, formerly Twitter,. Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, of Miami, blamed former President Biden for forcing Trump to end the program but pressed the president to allow those immigrants to stay in the country.
"Trump is cleaning up Biden’s political mess, and the legal limbo the Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans are facing is entirely Biden’s fault," she posted on X. "He fooled them. They came here fleeing failed, communist countries believing in Biden’s empty promises."
"The Trump administration should take this under consideration and not punish them for Biden’s mistakes," she said. "Let’s give them the opportunity to apply for the protections they were promised," she said.
The new policy impacts people who are already in the U.S. and who came under the program. It follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the "broad abuse" of humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there's war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.
READ MORE: Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans head to Florida under Biden immigration plan
During his campaign, Trump promised to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally, and as president he has been also ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and to stay.
DHS said parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the U.S. "must depart" before their parole termination date.
"Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status," DHS said.
Before the new order, the beneficiaries of the program could stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for stricter immigration laws, said the applauded Trump's action, calling the Biden-era program "illegal."
“Humanitarian parole is a very limited authority under which the president can allow otherwise inadmissible foreign nationals to enter the country," he said in a statement. "The Biden administration abused that authority to create what amounted to a shadow immigration system."
The change is being challenged in court
The administration decision has already been challenged in federal courts.
A group of American citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programs for the four nationalities.
Lawyers and activists raised their voices to denounce the government's decision.
Friday's action is "going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country," said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit at the end of February. She called it "reckless, cruel and counterproductive."
The Biden administration allowed up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries to come to the United States for two years with eligibility to work. It persuaded Mexico to take back the same number from those countries because the U.S. could deport few, if any, to their homes.
Cuba generally accepted about one deportation flight a month, while Venezuela and Nicaragua refused to take any. All three are U.S. adversaries.
Haiti accepted many deportation flights, especially after a surge of migrants from the Caribbean country in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in 2021. But Haiti has been in constant turmoil, hampering U.S. efforts.
Since late 2022, more than half a million people have come to the U.S. under the policy, also known as CHNV. It was a part of the Biden administration's approach to encourage people to come through new legal channels while cracking down on those who crossed the border illegally.
WLRN News Staff contributed to this story.
On its one-year anniversary, WLRN News took a deep look at the humanitarian parole program — the life-changing opportunities it was providing and the bureaucratic challenges that were undermining its success. Read the series Waiting for America here.
