Trump to revoke legal status for 530,000 migrants as he prepares to make decision on whether to deport Ukrainian refugees ‘pretty soon’
Joe Biden said the program was to reduce illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border (John Moore/Getty Images)
In addition, the POTUS is also said to be looking at the 240,000 Ukrainians who have taken sanctuary in the US since the conflict with Russia sparked in 2021.
On March 6, Trump said he would decide ‘very soon’ if he would remove their temporary parole status and had indicated ending their permission even before tensions between Washington and Kyiv.
Under the parole route, migrants have to leave the US before their permission expires on a certain date if they have not obtained any other legal basis or visa to stay in the US.
As per the notice, the Department of Homeland Security said: “Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status.”
The news comes as the Trump administration is on a mission to end what it describes as the ‘broad abuse’ of the humanitarian parole route, which allows people from overseas to temporarily live in the US if their homeland is deemed unsafe, either politically or due to escalating violence.
During his campaign trail, Trump vowed to deport millions of illegal US immigrants as well as cut legal pathways to halt what he describes as an ‘invasion’.
The program came under the Biden administration (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Severing the CHNV route has already faced backlash from activists and lawmakers in the federal courts with a handful of US citizens and immigrants suing the Trump administration for ending the parole.
Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit, said the notice is ‘going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country’.
She also called it ‘reckless, cruel and counterproductive’.
It also comes as Trump recently brought back a rare 18th-century wartime legislation, the Alien Enemies Act 1798, to expedite mass deportations of non-US citizens who have been accused of crime without any court proceedings taking place.
Last week, more than 250 alleged criminals were deported out of the US into the infamous El Salvador prison under the legislation.