Trump to revoke legal status for 530,000 migrants as he prepares to make decision on whether to deport Ukrainian refugees 'pretty soon'
The president is planning on stripping the legal status of 530,000 migrants in the US as he debates deporting Ukrainian refugees next.
Donald Trump is continuing his aggressive crackdown on immigration in the US by planning to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of people in the country who came under a humanitarian parole program.
Announced by Department of Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem on Friday (March 21), the notice to the Federal Register, applies to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who have come to the US since October 2022 under a sponsorship process.
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The CHNV program was accelerated under former President Joe Biden to allow 30,000 migrants a month from the four countries to come under financial sponsorships with two-year work permits.
However, it was subject to intense criticism at the time, as Biden said it was inspired to reduce illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border while critics said it allowed otherwise illegal migrants a free pass to come to the US.
Trump's notice states all those migrants will now lose their legal status as of April 24.
Prior to the order, migrants under the order could stay in the US up until their parole expiry date, however, any applications for asylum or other visa routes that would allow them to stay for longer also haven't been processed.
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'.
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.
Topics: Ukraine, Joe Biden, Russia, Donald Trump, US News, Politics
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