U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Miami, is pressing the Trump administration to protect migrants who qualified under former President Biden’s “humanitarian parole” program, which specifically allows Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians to live and work in the country for up to two years.
The Republican lawmaker’s letter on Friday to the Department of Homeland Security comes the day after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to deport migrants who entered the country under temporary permits granted by the former administration.
The Times reported that two Biden-era programs were singled out by Trump administration officials. One allowed migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to use an app, CBP One, to schedule appointments with U.S. immigration officials. The CBP One app program was canceled this week. The other was Biden’s humanitarian parole program.
READ MORE: Trump officials move to quickly expel migrants Biden allowed in temporarily
Salazar’s letter to Acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman was focused on the humanitarian parole program: “Although President Biden originally created this new program on dubious legal grounds and brought individuals here without a plan for their future, they were still enrolled under programs offered to them. Therefore, I believe they should have the ability to see their applications out to rectify their legal status.”
Only those migrants in the program who have criminal records or deportation orders should be removed and not protected, added Salazar.
A DHS spokesperson defended the administration’s plan to end the program.
“The Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country,” said the spokesperson. “This was all stopped on day one of the Trump Administration. This action will return the humanitarian parole program to its original purpose of looking at migrants on a case-by-case basis.”
The Biden administration opened the humanitarian parole program in 2023 to migrants from Venezuela and then to those from the other three countries to ease the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
More than 1 million migrants from the four countries, including hundreds of thousands with connections to South Florida, have entered the U.S. through the popular program.
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