The Biden administration has paused a controversial scheme that brought hundreds of thousands of migrants to the United States each year after massive fraud was uncovered.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on Friday that it has temporarily suspended its program that allows up to 30,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) to enter the country each month.
The sudden freeze on the controversial program comes after an internal DHS report revealed rampant fraud among sponsors who pay for migrants to come to the country, a source familiar with the report said. Fox News.
The freeze will give the agency time to investigate whether fraud has occurred in its support applications, which are forms filled out by individuals who “agree to provide financial support to a beneficiary and undergo background checks.”
According to the report, only 3,200 individual sponsors signed up to support approximately 101,000 migrants, raising concerns at DHS that the system is being abused.
The fraud report also found, shockingly, that some of the names used to fill out the sponsorship forms belonged to deceased individuals.
Migrants board flights in Texas bound for Chicago. The Biden administration’s plan to allow migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela to enter the United States aboard planes has been put on hold this week after the Department of Homeland Security uncovered a major domestic fraud
In addition, storage units were found to be the home addresses for some sponsorship applications, while certain phone numbers were used in thousands of applications.
Nearly 3,000 sponsorship applications were completed using fake ZIP codes, found the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a conservative immigration nonprofit that first obtained the report.
According to a DHS spokesperson, the agency now has “review mechanisms in place to detect and prevent fraud and abuse in our immigration processes. DHS takes any abuse of its processes very seriously,” a DHS spokesperson said.
‘When fraud is identified, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will investigate and litigate appropriate cases in immigration court and make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.’
The spokesperson continued: “Out of an abundance of caution, DHS has temporarily suspended the issuance of advance travel authorizations for new beneficiaries while it conducts a review of requests for support. DHS will resume processing requests as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards.”
“It needs to be shut down permanently,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said of Biden’s plan. “This program should never have existed in the first place.”
“It is simply another way in which the Biden-Harris Administration has welcomed hundreds of thousands of foreigners into our country, unchecked.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., told DailyMail.com: “This admission by the Biden-Harris administration vindicates every warning we have ever issued about the unlawful CHNV mass parole program.”
‘It also exposes the lying by administration officials, such as now-ousted DHS Secretary Mayorkas, about the quality and scope of the vetting process, not only for inadmissible aliens seeking entry, but also for those seeking to sponsor them.’
‘Last year, we issued a subpoena to demand documents related to this program, and while DHS partially complied, the department continues to fail to produce certain documents and communications related to the program.’
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at an airport to greet Americans released in a prison exchange. Their program has allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to fly directly to the U.S., obtain work permits and live in the country.
Green added: “This is exactly what happens when you create an illegal mass parole program to spare your administration the political embarrassment and bad image of overstretched borders. The Biden-Harris administration should end the CHNV program immediately.”
The flight program began in October 2022 and was initially intended for Venezuelans who met certain conditions, such as not having previously attempted to enter the United States illegally, having a U.S.-based sponsor and passing biographical vetting.
It is worth noting that migrants are responsible for their own travel, but the program allows them to fly to the United States.
Sponsors of migrants must also undergo background checks, making reported fraud among them even more worrying.
Still, DHS stressed that CHNV recipients are “thoroughly screened” before their arrival.
“The multi-tiered screening and verification process for advance travel authorizations is separate from the screening process for supporters residing in the United States,” the spokesperson told Fox News. “DHS has not identified any concerning issues related to the screening and verification of beneficiaries.”
As of October 2023, there were about 1.6 million applicants awaiting DHS approval to fly to the United States using Biden’s parole program, the agency said this year.
