Latest news with #CHNV
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
‘Cruel' decision: Immigrants in Massachusetts face fresh deportation fears after Trump end humanitarian parole program
Related : Advertisement The court ruled on a request from the Trump administration to stay a lower-court decision that temporarily halted plans to end the humanitarian parole programs. The proceedings originated from a that Trump ended after he returned to office in January. The Trump administration planned to end the program on Humanitarian parole dates back to the 1950s, when a law granted the attorney general discretion to admit noncitizens from countries affected by gang violence, war, or other political instability. Trump has targeted the system as part of his wider crackdown on legal immigration and promise to deport millions of people. Related : Advertisement Two justices appointed by Democratic presidents, On Saturday, Mayor Michelle Wu said the city remains 'steadfast' in its commitment to being safe, welcoming, and 'creating opportunity for all.' 'It's not despite our immigrant heritage that we are strong, it is because of our immigrant heritage and the diversity of all of Boston,' she told reporters at Harambee Park, speaking at a an unveiling of Caribbean flag poles. Wu's office provided the Globe with an audio recording of her remarks. Related : US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin praised the high court's decision on Friday in a statement that called the CHNV program 'disastrous.' 'Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First,' she said. Thielman said in the last two years, the institute has helped about 15,000 people from Haiti enroll in federal benefits, about half of whom were granted legal status through the CHNV program. The agency also enrolled 1,500 to 1,800 Haitians with the legal protections in employment services to help them find work, he said. Many Haitians have left the country to flee gang violence, political turmoil, poverty, and fallout from natural disasters, including a devastating earthquake in 2010. Related : Advertisement Tilda, a 42-year-old Haitian woman living in Brockton, said she came to Massachusetts under the parole program in 2023. She asked to be identified by her nickname because she fears retaliation from federal immigration authorities. With her parolee status, Tilda said she was granted authorization to work, found a job with a plastic appliances manufacturer, and became certified as a home health aide. 'I liked it, because I found a job,' she said through a Haitian Creole interpreter during an interview in April. 'I was living a better life.' Related : Returning to Haiti is not an option, she said. Her father falls asleep amid the sound of gunfire outside his home in Port-au-Prince, she said. Tilda previously attempted to establish a new life in Brazil, but said she couldn't find steady work and then moved to the United States. 'It's very difficult because if you go back to Haiti, you risk your life,' Tilda said. One plaintiff in the lawsuit seeking to reinstate the program is Wilhen Pierre Victor, a Woburn resident who sponsored family members to enter the United States from Haiti with humanitarian parole. Victor's brother and his family relocated to Woburn last year, and have found work, but applications filed by her niece and cousin weren't processed before Trump ended the program, the complaint said. Now the niece and cousin are stuck in Haiti and Victor's brother fears he and his family won't be able to stay here. Advertisement 'Her brother and his family could be forced to return to a life in Haiti rife with instability and violence,' the complaint said. In a statement, Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the groups behind the lawsuit, said the Supreme Court's move is 'devastating.' 'While we grieve with these communities today, we remain resolved in our fight for the dignity they deserve,' she said. Without humanitarian parole, noncitizens can seek authority to stay in the country legally by applying for asylum or temporary protected status, Thielman said. Yet the temporary protected status program is also under attack. On May 19, the Supreme Court let the Trump administration withdraw those protections from about Willian came to the United States from Venezuela two years ago with temporary protected status and now works as a delivery driver for Amazon. He asked to be identified only by his first name because he fears retaliation from immigration officials. Willian said Venezuelans who fled to the United States are seen as enemies by Nicolás Maduro, leader of the South American nation who has been described by Trump as a 'dictator.' Returning to Venezuela could be dangerous, he said. 'Even if we don't commit a crime, even if we don't do anything wrong, they could put us in jail,' Willian said in Spanish as Thielman translated his remarks into English. Marvin Mathelier, executive director of the Toussaint Louverture Cultural Center in Boston, said Haitians must sell all their belongings to pay to leave the country. Advertisement If they are forced to return, they face nothing but danger, he said. 'I think this is cruel,' said Mathelier, whose parents moved to the United States from Haiti in the 1980s. 'We are just throwing them back to the wolves and that's just very unfortunate.' Laura Crimaldi can be reached at
United News of India
2 days ago
- Politics
- United News of India
SC allows Trump to revoke legal status for 500,000 migrants
Washington, May 30 (UNI) US President Donald Trump's administration can temporarily revoke the legal status of over 500,000 migrants living in the US, the US Supreme Court ruled on Friday. The ruling put on hold a previous federal judge's order stopping the administration from ending the "parole" immigration programme, established by former President Joe Biden. The programme protected immigrants fleeing economic and political turmoil in their home countries, media reported. The new order puts roughly 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela at risk of being deported, BBC reported. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, two of the court's three liberal justices, dissented. The parole programme allows immigrants temporary status to work and live in the US for two years because of "urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit", according to the US government. The Trump administration had filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from ending the programme, also known as CHNV humanitarian parole. The White House "celebrated" the opportunity to deport 500,000 "invaders", White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller local media. "The Supreme Court justly stepped in". In her dissent, Justice Jackson wrote that the court's order would "have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims". On the day he took office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to get rid of parole programmes. Then, in March, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the end of CHNV humanitarian parole. Several immigrants rights groups and migrants from the programme sued the Trump administration over the decision, arguing they could "face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death" if deported back to their home countries. The ruling comes after the Supreme Court earlier this month allowed Trump officials to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) - a separate programme - for some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants living and working in the US. Humanitarian parole programmes have been used for decades to allow immigrants fleeing war and other tumultuous conditions in their home countries to come to the US, including Cubans in the 1960s following the revolution. The Biden administration also established a parole programme in 2022 for Ukrainians fleeing after Russia's invasion. UNI XC GNK
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
‘Returning to Haiti is suicide': Migrants face harrowing choice after Supreme Court ruling
From the moment President Donald Trump took office, Flo has worried and contemplated her next steps. The mother of a 5-year-old daughter who is still in Haiti, Flo, the beneficiary of the Biden-era humanitarian program known as CHNV, didn't want to be limited by the restrictions that come with a political asylum claim, so she didn't apply. But neither did the North Miami woman want to return to gang-ridden Haiti, where most people are dependent on the remittances that flow into the country from abroad to survive — and where in moments everyday life can take a drastic turn for the worse. 'I've been looking at my options,' said Flo, who asked that her full name not be used for fear she will be targeted by immigration authorities. She said she's thinking about moving to Canada, where she has over a dozen family members, but has yet to make up her mind. 'Returning to Haiti is suicide. You never know what's going to happen to you.' On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court left Flo and as many as a half-million other immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela with few options when it ruled that the Trump administration can, for the moment, terminate the humanitarian program that granted them temporary legal status in the United States. 'I couldn't see any hope in Haiti and even now, I don't see any hope,' said Flo. 'When they say 'Haitians have to go,' and Haitians don't want to leave, it's because they know there is no life in Haiti.' Even though there are parts of Haiti not yet controlled by the armed criminal gangs that have run amok in the capital and other regions, it's just a matter of time, because the government has been so inept at combating them, Flo said: 'When you have an open wound and you don't treat it, it will spread.' Unlike Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, whose governments have been traditionally reluctant to take back deportees from the United States, Haiti always complies, making Haitians in the U.S. more vulnerable that the other nationalities. Haiti's government says it can't turn down the repatriation of its citizens. But more fundamentally, the country's current unelected leaders are totally dependent on the U.S. for their political survival, for humanitarian assistance and for the money that pays for the country's national police and an international security support mission. Kidnappings, other atrocities This year alone, the Trump administration has landed at least three Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights in Haiti. Though the numbers are nowhere that of the Dominican Republic — which has repatriated at least 139,000 Haitians this year — the Department of Homeland Security has sent deportation flights despite warnings about the dangers Haitians face on returning and calls by immigration advocates and the United Nations to stop. Haitians make up one of the largest beneficiaries of the parole program — known as CHNV for the initials of the four nationalities affected — with approximately 211,010 taking advantage of the benefit as of the end of last year. Haitians were not part of the program initially, but they were added by the Biden administration to provide humanitarian relief as the country collapsed into lawlessness, as well as to prevent a mass migration to South Florida. The program allowed people from the four countries to come to the U.S., at a rate of 30,000, a month if they passed background checks, had a financial sponsor in the U.S. and bought their plane ticket. Some of the Haitians who arrived as part of the program were people like Flo, living outside the capital and searching for a better life. Others — nurses, police officers, bankers, doctors and other professionals —had been victims of kidnappings and other atrocities. Now, in the absence of some other means of staying legally in the U.S. such as Temporary Protected Status or a political asylum claim, they have found themselves forcibly rendered undocumented overnight, leaving them vulnerable to deportation to a country that remains overwhelmed by violence and rapidly worsening political instability. 'Today's ruling does not just impact up to half a million legal immigrants in this country. It upends the lives of their employers, their families and their loved ones,' Karen Tumlin, founder and director of the advocacy group Justice Action Center, said on the brink of tears during a press call Friday. 'In short, it impacts all of us. Trump's cruel immigration agenda is not dramatically sealed off from those of us who have the fortune to be U.S. citizens at birth, we are all impacted by this cruelty, and to all Americans who care about the rule of law.' In Haiti's case, neither a recent U.S. designation of the armed groups as terrorist organizations nor a multinational force led by Kenya has made a dent in the gangs' ability to sow chaos. So its nationals in the United States who came under the CHNV program now face a hard choice: Do they stay and risk being deported, return home and being kidnapped or killed, or flee some place else? 'For the Trump administration to find it okay to send people to Haiti right now is unbelievable. It's unconscionable,' said Guerline Joseph, executive director and co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrants' rights group. 'We don't even understand the narrative behind it, other than ... racism. 'We are calling on the administration to reconsider their plan, and we are calling on the American people to voice their concerns against these extreme conditions, and we are asking the community to stay vigilant, to make sure that they take care of themselves, take a moment to breathe,' she added. Speaking directly to Haitians in Creole during a press conference after the Supreme Court decision, Joseph acknowledged what she called a 'painful day.' But she said the group's legal team, which filed the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court's order Friday, plans to continue its fight. 'Many lives are at risk, and we know that deportations continue to go to Haiti every single month, so we are really pushing back and trying to see what's the best way moving forward,' she said. 'Deeply disappointing' Paul Christian Namphy, policy director of Family Action Network Movement in Miami, which works with Haitian migrants, also called on the Haitian community to remain united and engaged. 'This deeply disappointing ruling jeopardizes the lives of approximately half a million people who fled violence and instability seeking safety, dignity and opportunity,' said Namphy. 'We will not stop fighting for the rights, dignity and livelihoods of immigrants.' Rivly Breus knew that the CHNV program had a two-year window when she applied with her Miami non-profit, the Erzule Paul Foundation, to help resettle refugees by providing financial sponsorship. Through the organization Breus and other Americans were encouraged to sponsor refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ukraine and Afghanistan. Breus, who lives in North Miami, took in 30 people, whom she helped find jobs, enroll in school and start making a better life. 'It's not that they want to leave their country to come to America,' she said. 'It's just circumstances that are forcing them to come over here.... They are grateful to be here away from all the tragedies and difficulties they were facing in their homeland.' She said the administration's line tarring immigrants are criminals is wrong. 'These people are family members, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, and just your regular next-door neighbor, basically they're just looking to survive,' she said. Though she said she isn't shocked by Friday's ruling, she is disappointed and worried about its impact. 'We thought that going through the courts would give us more time to do what we needed to do, whether it's finding loopholes or trying to get as many advocates together to see if we could put a halt on the proceedings,' Breus said. 'Now what do I tell those who have court dates when they go to court? What's going to happen? Are they going to be deported right away? Are they going to be taken on a bus to a detention center?' Those are the very questions people have been asking her, especially those from Haiti, even before Friday's ruling. 'Where are they going to go?' Breus said as her mother, a Haitian immigrant herself, looked on. 'The ones from Port-au-Prince, they can't go back, because some of their homes are occupied by gangs, or their neighborhoods are occupied. For those who are going elsewhere outside of Port-au-Prince, where there was unemployment and no stability or opportunities, what kind of opportunity is there?'' 'Going someplace else' Flo has been in the U.S. since 2023, and works a part-time job stocking store shelves overnight making $14.50 an hour. Some weeks she may work three days or even a full week. Other weeks she may find herself sitting at home for five straight days. Regardless of whether she works or not, she has to send money home to take care of her daughter and other family members. 'If you are working over here and you have family in Haiti and you don't send money, you're committing a huge crime,' she said. Though life in the U.S. hasn't been without challenges, she said, it's still better than Haiti. 'Here you can walk outside and know nothing is going to happen to you,' she said. 'But not in Haiti. There you can lie down and, just like that, you're dead from a stray bullet.' Still, she knows her time is running out and her options are limited. Though she has Temporary Protected Status, that will end in three months unless the administration extends it, which appears unlikely. The administration, which announced Friday that diplomat Henry Wooster will replace U.S. Ambassador Dennis Hankins to lead its embassy in Port-au-Prince, has not given any indication of what it will do. 'If they tell me categorically I have to go, I don't have a choice,' Flo said. Still, she says, Haiti is not an option, even though she misses her daughter and it pains her to hear her ask when she is coming home. 'I'm going some place else.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
What to Know as Supreme Court Lets Trump End Migrant Program
Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States deplane at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, Friday, May 2, 2025. Credit - Ariana Cubillos—AP Photo Hundreds of thousands of migrants could be at risk of deportation after a divided Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump Administration can—for now—end a Biden-era program that extended humanitarian parole protections to migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The CHNV special-parole program allowed migrants from the four countries to travel legally to the U.S. and stay and work in the country for up to two years. It was used by at least 530,000 migrants since late 2022. The Supreme Court's ruling, the latest of several decisions the court has issued green-lighting the Trump Administration's aggressive approach to immigration, gives Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the discretion to revoke the parole program while legal challenges to its termination move through the courts. '[The Biden Administration] allowed more than half a million poorly vetted aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and their immediate family members to enter the United States through these disastrous parole programs; granted them opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers,' Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said after the ruling came down. 'Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First.' Several immigration advocacy groups said the decision will have 'devastating consequences' on immigrant communities. 'This is a deeply tragic decision that penalizes half a million people for complying with our immigration laws,' Todd Schulte, president of an immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy organization, wrote in a statement emailed to TIME. 'This decision will have devastating and immediate consequences…The government failed to show any harm remotely comparable to that which will come from half a million people losing their jobs and becoming subject to deportation.' Here's what to know about the program and the Supreme Court's decision. The program, rolled out during the Biden Administration, allowed migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to obtain authorization to come to the United States legally, as well as to stay and work legally in the country and seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits, if they were eligible, during a two-year parole period. It was initially adopted in 2022 as a response to high levels of illegal immigration, specifically for Venezuelan immigrants, says David Beir, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. The program was predated by a similar program created in early 2022 for Ukrainian immigrants in response to the surge of Ukrainians who came to the border seeking asylum after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The program required migrants from Venezuela to obtain a sponsor in the United States who would be willing to take some measure of financial responsibility for them, as well as an airline ticket to fly directly, and legally, to the United States. The Biden Administration rolled out the program in hopes that it would give the government control to vet incoming migrants and manage the flow of arrivals through air travel, rather than across the southern U.S. border, Beir wrote in 2023. Eligibility for the protections was later extended to people from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti, as well. The Supreme Court's Friday decision overruled a lower court in Massachusetts that temporarily blocked the federal government from implementing Noem's March 25 order to revoke the legal status given to migrants under the program. That order was in line with President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 Executive Order 'Securing Our Borders,' which instructed Noem to 'terminate all categorical parole programs that are contrary to the policies of the United States established in my Executive Orders.' The Supreme Court ruling will allow the Administration to end the program while the case proceeds. The decision was unsigned and not accompanied by an explanation. Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson issued an incensed dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, stating that the court 'has plainly botched this assessment today.' The program had been widely lauded by immigrant rights groups as a 'humanitarian relief' program utilized to help those in unstable conditions in their own countries seek refuge. 'Even within an immigration system that is decades overdue for a Congressional overhaul, the CHNV parole processes stood out as an innovative model for creating legal and orderly pathways,' wrote Schulte, of 'Granting parole to people fleeing harm dramatically reduced unauthorized migration to the southern border, and it allowed people to work and contribute, bringing greater stability to families, employers, and communities across the country.' Beir, of the Cato Institute, said that terminating the program could quickly end the legal status of migrants who have been protected under the program. 'The administration's already empowered its agents to arrest people who are on parole, to arrest people who are applicants for asylum,' Beir told TIME. 'The practical upshot is that a lot of these people had parole for two years, and if they haven't applied for asylum, then there's really no basis for them to be in the country, and they start accumulating unlawful presence as soon as this decision takes effect.' According to Beir, it is unclear how many migrants will be affected and potentially deported due to the ruling. 'Certainly half a million came in through the program,' Beir said. 'But then, a lot of these people were from Haiti and Venezuela, have temporary protected status, which you know the administration is eventually going to revoke as well. And then, of course, the backstop of being an asylum applicant for many people will be another way for them to be able to keep working legally and, you know, going through the process and stay here.' Beir says an important aspect of this decision that must be highlighted is that the migrants who used the program went through legal pathways to enter the United States—pathways opened based on promises made by the United States government when the program began: 'They pay for their own flights. They travel on airlines like any other visitors to the United States and the other you know, part of this is really completely unprecedented for an administration to en masse terminate the status of people who've come to the United States legally like this.' Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time Magazine
What to Know About the Biden-Era Migrant Program the Supreme Court Just Let Trump End
Hundreds of thousands of migrants could be at risk of deportation after a divided Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump Administration can—for now—end a Biden-era program that extended humanitarian parole protections to migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The CHNV special-parole program allowed migrants from the four countries to travel legally to the U.S. and stay and work in the country for up to two years. It was used by at least 530,000 migrants since late 2022. The Supreme Court's ruling, the latest of several decisions the court has issued green-lighting the Trump Administration's aggressive approach to immigration, gives Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the discretion to revoke the parole program while legal challenges to its termination move through the courts. '[The Biden Administration] allowed more than half a million poorly vetted aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and their immediate family members to enter the United States through these disastrous parole programs; granted them opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers,' Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said after the ruling came down. 'Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First.' Several immigration advocacy groups said the decision will have 'devastating consequences' on immigrant communities. 'This is a deeply tragic decision that penalizes half a million people for complying with our immigration laws,' Todd Schulte, president of an immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy organization, wrote in a statement emailed to TIME. 'This decision will have devastating and immediate consequences…The government failed to show any harm remotely comparable to that which will come from half a million people losing their jobs and becoming subject to deportation.' Here's what to know about the program and the Supreme Court's decision. What is the CHNV program? The program, rolled out during the Biden Administration, allowed migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to obtain authorization to come to the United States legally, as well as to stay and work legally in the country and seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits, if they were eligible, during a two-year parole period. It was initially adopted in 2022 as a response to high levels of illegal immigration, specifically for Venezuelan immigrants, says David Beir, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. The program was predated by a similar program created in early 2022 for Ukrainian immigrants in response to the surge of Ukrainians who came to the border seeking asylum after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The program required migrants from Venezuela to obtain a sponsor in the United States who would be willing to take some measure of financial responsibility for them, as well as an airline ticket to fly directly, and legally, to the United States. The Biden Administration rolled out the program in hopes that it would give the government control to vet incoming migrants and manage the flow of arrivals through air travel, rather than across the southern U.S. border, Beir wrote in 2023. Eligibility for the protections was later extended to people from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti, as well. What did the Supreme Court rule? The Supreme Court's Friday decision overruled a lower court in Massachusetts that temporarily blocked the federal government from implementing Noem's March 25 order to revoke the legal status given to migrants under the program. That order was in line with President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 Executive Order 'Securing Our Borders,' which instructed Noem to 'terminate all categorical parole programs that are contrary to the policies of the United States established in my Executive Orders.' The Supreme Court ruling will allow the Administration to end the program while the case proceeds. The decision was unsigned and not accompanied by an explanation. Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson issued an incensed dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, stating that the court 'has plainly botched this assessment today.' What will the impact of the ruling be? The program had been widely lauded by immigrant rights groups as a 'humanitarian relief' program utilized to help those in unstable conditions in their own countries seek refuge. 'Even within an immigration system that is decades overdue for a Congressional overhaul, the CHNV parole processes stood out as an innovative model for creating legal and orderly pathways,' wrote Schulte, of 'Granting parole to people fleeing harm dramatically reduced unauthorized migration to the southern border, and it allowed people to work and contribute, bringing greater stability to families, employers, and communities across the country.' Beir, of the Cato Institute, said that terminating the program could quickly end the legal status of migrants who have been protected under the program. 'The administration's already empowered its agents to arrest people who are on parole, to arrest people who are applicants for asylum,' Beir told TIME. 'The practical upshot is that a lot of these people had parole for two years, and if they haven't applied for asylum, then there's really no basis for them to be in the country, and they start accumulating unlawful presence as soon as this decision takes effect.' According to Beir, it is unclear how many migrants will be affected and potentially deported due to the ruling. 'Certainly half a million came in through the program,' Beir said. 'But then, a lot of these people were from Haiti and Venezuela, have temporary protected status, which you know the administration is eventually going to revoke as well. And then, of course, the backstop of being an asylum applicant for many people will be another way for them to be able to keep working legally and, you know, going through the process and stay here.' Beir says an important aspect of this decision that must be highlighted is that the migrants who used the program went through legal pathways to enter the United States—pathways opened based on promises made by the United States government when the program began: 'They pay for their own flights. They travel on airlines like any other visitors to the United States and the other you know, part of this is really completely unprecedented for an administration to en masse terminate the status of people who've come to the United States legally like this.'
