The policy impacts people from four South American nations who were brought into the US under a parole programme in 2022
The migrants are set to lose their legal status on April 24. File Pic/Getty Images
The US Department of Homeland Security has said that it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month. The news came right as US President Donald Trump pledged to deport millions of “criminal aliens”.
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The order applies to about 5,32,000 people from the four countries who have come to the United States since October 2022. Back then, they arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the US. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.
The new policy impacts people who are already in the US and who came under the humanitarian parole programme. It follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the “broad abuse” of the humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool former Presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the US.
Before the new order, the beneficiaries of the program could stay in the US until their parole expires, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer. Furthermore, thousands of law enforcement officials from various agencies working in areas such as drug trafficking, terrorism, sexual abuse, fraud, and others—are steadily being enlisted to work as immigration officers.
Legal aid for migrant children traveling alone also cut
The Trump administration has also ended a contract that provides legal help to migrant children entering the country without a parent or guardian. The Acacia Center for Justice, which contracts with the government to provide legal services to such children under 18—said they were informed that the US Department of Health and Human Services was terminating nearly all the legal work that the centre does, including paying for lawyers for roughly 26,000 children when they go to immigration court.
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