The Department of Homeland Security is advising migrants allowed to stay in the U.S. for up to two years through the Biden administration's "humanitarian parole" program that if they leave now, they might get a chance to legally return.
But there will be consequences if they don't leave.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the New York Post on Tuesday that the Biden administration "abused the parole system" by turning it into "an unrecognizable shell of itself used for fraud and to exploit the immigration system."
"The Trump administration is restoring integrity back into our immigration system," McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said migrants who were part of the parole program are being encouraged to "voluntarily leave" the U.S. now, and that they might have a chance to enter legally in the future and "live the American dream."
But if they do not leave, she said "they will face the inevitable consequences." The policy change revokes the parolee's legal status and makes them targets of ICE deportation raids.
"If aliens do not leave the country, they will be tracked down and face additional financial penalty — and potentially criminal," she said.
The Biden administration last summer paused the program because of allegations of rampant fraud. The program was open to migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who arrived in the U.S. by airplane following record surges of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Inauguration Day that ended the broad use of the program and directed it to be determined on a case-by-case basis "only when an individual alien demonstrates urgent humanitarian reasons, or a significant public benefit is derived from their particular continued presence" in the U.S. The next day, DHS directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to "phase out any parole programs that are not in accordance with the law."
The parole program started accepting Venezuelans in October 2022 and was expanded three months later to include Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Cubans, the Post reported. The top three cities parolees flew into were Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and New York.
But documents obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform revealed that President Joe Biden's DHS was rubber stamping parole applications without verifying information provided by sponsors or parolees. FAIR provided evidence of fraud that included the use of fake Social Security numbers, including those of dead people, and the use of fake phone numbers.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration said the Temporary Protected Status for approximately 500,000 Haitians in the U.S. will end in six months. Last month, it said the TPS for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans will end in April.
Eight people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Nicaragua who came to the U.S. through the Biden administration's humanitarian parole program and the advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance reportedly filed a federal lawsuit in Boston challenging Trump's decision to shut down of three of the parole measures.