The Biden administration is halting a program that has already flown nearly half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela into the US due to allegations of rampant fraud, The Post has learned.
The Department of Homeland Security stopped advance travel authorizations in mid-July for the humanitarian parole program that has allowed in 30,000 migrants per month from those nations for more than a year and a half, which was first reported by Fox News.
“Out of an abundance of caution, DHS has temporarily paused the issuance of advanced travel authorizations for new beneficiaries while it undertakes a review of supporter applications,” a spokesperson told The Post.
“DHS will restart application processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards,” the spokesperson said, adding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement “will investigate and litigate applicable cases in immigration court and make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.”
The pause came on July 6 for Venezuelans and July 18 for the other countries, Fox News reported, after an internal DHS report found potentially massive fraud occurring among thousands of sponsors for the migrants, with the listing of fake social security numbers or phone numbers — some of which belonged tp dead people.
The review, conducted by the subagency Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), also found “many applications listed the same physical address,” “some 100 addresses were listed on over 19,000 forms” and “many applications were submitted by the same IP address,” according to documents obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
One IP address located in Tijuana, Mexico was used 1,328 times, according to FAIR, while other fraudulent efforts included plugging in “the same exact answers” to an immigration form “on hundreds of applications — in some instances, the same answer was used by over 10,000 applicants.”
“This damning internal report further confirms that the sole focus of the Biden-Harris administration, when it comes to illegal immigration, is getting as many people into the country as they can, by any means necessary, and at the risk of national security,” said Dan Stein, the president of FAIR.
“The CHNV program was established without congressional authorization and in violation of statutory requirements that parole be granted only on a case-by-case basis for explicit national interest or humanitarian purposes,” Stein also said.
The humanitarian parole of Venezuelans began in October 2022, allowing into the US tens of thousands of migrants to work for two years, so long as each were vetted and had a sponsor — and had not previously tried to illegally cross into the country.
Three months later, the Biden administration enlarged the program to include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans — with the top three cities parolees fly into being Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and New York City.
More than 400,000 have entered the US via parole since then and will “more than likely … [be] staying here forever,” according to former ICE Director Tom Homan, given the legal avenues available to maintain permanent residency.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) in a Friday statement called for the immediate termination of the so-called “CHNV” program.
“This admission by the Biden-Harris administration vindicates every warning we have ever issued about the unlawful CHNV mass-parole program. It also exposes the lie by administration officials, like now-impeached DHS Secretary Mayorkas, about the quality and extent of the vetting process — not just for the inadmissible aliens seeking entry, but those attempting to sponsor them,” Green said.
“We issued a subpoena last year to compel documents regarding this program, and while DHS partially complied, the department remains delinquent in producing certain documents and communications relating to the program,” he added.
“This is exactly what happens when you create an unlawful mass-parole program in order to spare your administration the political embarrassment and bad optics of overrun borders.”
In March, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told The Post that the parole program was “a bait and switch” designed by the Biden administration “so that the border doesn’t look as out of control.”
“They’re just paroling people in through airports rather than having them come across the border,” Judd said, predicting an “amnesty program in the future” to accommodate the millions who have come into the country since the president took office in January 2021.
Since 2022, the administration has scuttled at least 350,000 asylum cases on immigration court dockets nationwide as long as the migrants had no criminal records.
“CHNV beneficiaries are thoroughly screened and vetted prior to their arrival to the United States,” a DHS spokesperson told The Post in a statement.
“The multi-layered screening and vetting for advanced travel authorizations is separate from the screening of U.S.-based supporters,” the spokesperson also said. “DHS has not identified issues of concern relating to the screening and vetting of beneficiaries.”