The Department of Homeland Security this week announced its plan to end the parole program for individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and their immediate family members. The program’s termination, which would take effect on April 24, 2025, would also end work authorization for individuals from these countries participating in the program.
What is the CHNV Parole Program?
The Immigration and Nationality Act grants the Secretary of Homeland Security narrow authority to confer “parole status” for individuals into the U.S. “temporarily under such conditions as DHS may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
The CHNV parole program (for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela) was created in 2022 to allow individuals from the four designated countries, and their immediate family members, to request authorization to travel to the United States in order to be considered for parole status. They could then remain in the country for two years under parole status.
This is a different program from DHS’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
DHS’s Federal Register posting noted that approximately 532,000 individuals were granted authorization to enter the U.S. under the CHNV program.
Work authorization for individuals in the CHNV program are now set to expire on April 24, 2025.
The Federal Register notice said that, despite ending the CHNV program, the Secretary of Homeland Security retains the discretion to continue to extend parole to any individual in the CHNV program on a case-by-case basis “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
