Biden Resumes Immigration Program That Was Suspended Over Fraud Concerns

President Joe Biden‘s administration is set to resume an immigration program that was previously suspended due to fraud concerns.

On Thursday, the Biden administration announced that it was resuming an immigration program that permits migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the United States.

The program was previously suspended over fraud concerns, but the announcement today that the updated program will include “additional vetting” of their U.S.-based financial sponsors

“Together with our existing rigorous vetting of potential beneficiaries seeking to travel to the United States, these new procedures for supporters have strengthened the integrity of these processes and will help protect against exploitation of beneficiaries,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, obtained by the Associated Press (AP).

The program was initially announced in January 2023 and seeks to expand pathways for immigrants to enter the U.S. legally while limiting asylum claims for those who cross the border illegally.

The policy targets countries that send large numbers of migrants to the United States but typically refuse to accept deportees. It is coupled with commitments from Mexico to take back individuals from those nations who cross the U.S. border illegally.

The U.S. will be accepting up to 30,000 migrants per month, under the program, from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The migrants will be given the opportunity to apply for a work authorization. In order to qualify for the program, migrants must have a U.S.-based financial sponsor who vouches for them and must arrive at an American airport at their own expense, rather than crossing the southern border. Both the sponsors and the migrants are subject to vetting by Homeland Security.

Some Republicans have previously criticized the program and took aim at the Biden administration after it was suspended last month.

In a statement following the announcement that the program will resume on Thursday, Republican Representative Mark Green, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “It should come as no surprise that the Biden-Harris administration has rushed to restart its unlawful CHNV mass-parole scheme, despite the clear evidence of fraud permeating the program. The CHNV program, along with the use of the CBP One app at the Southwest border, has helped the president and his border czar play a massive shell game, encouraging otherwise-inadmissible aliens to simply cross at ports of entry instead of between them.”

“My Committee has engaged with the department since this pause was announced, and the results were sobering. Instead of scrapping the clearly flawed program, the department is allowing it to continue without rooting out the fraud or putting adequate safeguards in place to prevent exploitation by sponsors here in the United States. But fundamentally, there would be no fraud to prevent if DHS simply stopped importing 30,000 inadmissible aliens every month in the first place,” Green’s statement added.