By Mary Campbell | Editorial credit: Andrew Harnik / Shutterstock.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.:  In a sweeping policy reversal, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that it will terminate temporary legal protections for more than 530,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who were admitted to the United States under a Biden-era immigration program. 

The decision was outlined in a notice posted to the Federal Register and signed by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. The order brings an early end to the CHNV Parole Program—an initiative launched by the Biden administration in October 2022, which provided humanitarian relief and two-year work authorization to nationals of the four countries who entered the U.S. with a financial sponsor.

Under the new directive, recipients of this humanitarian parole will lose their legal status effective April 24, 2025.

“This change reflects a reassessment of the program’s scope and intent,” the notice states, emphasizing the administration’s position that the parole program had exceeded its intended humanitarian framework. “The broad use of humanitarian parole has led to significant strain on immigration resources and enforcement.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in a statement that the “termination of the C.H.N.V. parole programs, and the termination of parole for those who exploited it, is a return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First.”

The move affects individuals already living and working legally in the United States under the CHNV program. Over the past two years, the initiative offered a legal pathway for individuals fleeing violence, economic collapse, and political persecution in their home countries.

The program’s termination aligns with earlier policy efforts under the Trump administration, which criticized the use of humanitarian parole as overly expansive and susceptible to abuse. Trump-era officials had argued that such programs undermined formal immigration channels and overwhelmed border enforcement mechanisms.

Immigrant rights advocates condemned the DHS decision, calling it a politically motivated rollback of critical protections for vulnerable populations.

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”.

“This action abandons hundreds of thousands of people who sought safety and followed the legal process,” said Brian Figeroux, Esq. Host of the Ask the Lawyer Radio Program and Podcast. “It destabilizes families and disrupts communities that welcomed them in good faith.”

“It’s taking the livelihood away from thousands and thousands of people who are here legally, rendering them undocumented and putting their lives at risk,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy organization.

Republican lawmakers, however, applauded the announcement, framing it as a necessary correction to what they described as executive overreach during the Biden administration. “With this order, DHS is restoring integrity to our immigration system,” said lawmakers in a statement. “The parole authority was never meant to be used as a backdoor to mass entry.”

The CHNV program, which initially faced legal challenges in federal court, was designed to reduce irregular migration at the U.S. southern border by providing a lawful entry process for nationals of crisis-affected countries. Participants were required to pass background checks and have U.S.-based sponsors committed to supporting them financially.

With its cancellation, advocates warn of heightened legal uncertainty and the potential for mass removals or forced returns to countries still plagued by instability.

DHS has not yet released a detailed plan for how the termination will be implemented, nor has it clarified whether any alternative pathways will be made available to affected individuals.

The decision arrives amid broader debates over immigration enforcement and border policy in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, with humanitarian parole increasingly at the center of partisan clashes over executive authority and immigration reform.