Biden admin restarts controversial migrant flight program with additional vetting after fraud revelations
The Biden administration on Thursday announced that it is restarting a controversial parole policy that allows tens of thousands of migrants into the United States each month – after it was put on hold last month after revelations about significant amounts of fraud within part of the program.
The Department of Homeland Security said it is resuming the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV) after it "incorporated additional vetting of U.S.-based supporters to strengthen the integrity of the processes."
"With these updated procedures in place, DHS is resuming the issuance of new Advance Travel Authorizations and will closely monitor how this new process is operating moving forward," a spokesperson said.
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Fox News Digital first reported this month that the administration paused the issuing of advance travel authorizations in July for the program, which allows 30,000 nationals from those countries to travel into the U.S. each month and enter legally under the administration's use of parole since early 2023.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed to Fox News Digital at the time that "out of an abundance of caution" it has stopped issuing the authorizations and that it takes abuse of processes very seriously.
The pause came after an internal report, parts of which have been made public by the Federation of American Immigration Reform, found that 100,948 forms were filled out by 3,218 serial sponsors – those whose number appears on 20 or more forms.
It also found that 24 of the 1,000 most used numbers belonged to a dead person. Meanwhile, 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on over 19,000 forms. Those addresses included storage units. The focus is on issues with supporter filings, and not with the filings from the beneficiaries of the program themselves.
On Thursday, DHS said the new vetting measures include "further scrutiny of supporters’ financial records and criminal background, additional vetting to identify fraudulent supporter profiles, and bolstered review methods to identify serial filing trends." DHS will also require fingerprints from supporters.
"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 statement said.
The Biden administration has claimed the expanded use of parole processes has led to a drop in illegal border crossings, including a 98% decrease from CHNV nationals compared to December 2022.
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But Republicans have slammed the administration’s use of parole, arguing that it represents an abuse of the parole process – which is authorized to be used on a case by case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefits.
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House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said the resumption was no surprise, despite the fraud revelations.
"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," he said in a statement. "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," he added.