Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald J. Trump has re­voked the hu­man­i­tar­i­an pa­role pro­gramme, known as the CHNV pro­gramme, for peo­ple from Haiti, Cu­ba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

“This de­ci­sion will cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly end the pro­tec­tion and le­gal sta­tus of 530,000 peo­ple who ar­rived in the Unit­ed States un­der pa­role sta­tus,” said Mu­rad Awawdeh, pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the New York Im­mi­gra­tion Coali­tion (NY­IC).

He said the CHNV pro­gramme al­lowed qual­i­fied na­tion­als from these coun­tries to live and work in the US through spon­sor­ship by a US cit­i­zen or per­ma­nent res­i­dent for two years.

Awawdeh said the pro­gramme will end on April 24, 2025, when those in the pro­gramme will lose sta­tus and work au­tho­riza­tion.

“Im­pact­ed com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are ad­vised to seek qual­i­fied le­gal coun­sel to ex­plore al­ter­na­tive paths for law­ful sta­tus such as asy­lum, TPS (Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus), or law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dence or risk de­por­ta­tion,” he said.

“The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sion to re­voke the CN­HV hu­man­i­tar­i­an pa­role pro­gramme is a dev­as­tat­ing be­tray­al of the im­mi­grants who were legal­ly per­mit­ted to seek safe­ty and build their lives in the Unit­ed States.

“This pro­gramme pro­vid­ed a cru­cial life­line for hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple flee­ing po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion and vi­o­lence, of­fer­ing them tem­po­rary pro­tec­tion and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to start over and con­tribute to their new com­mu­ni­ties,” he added. “

Awawdeh said the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is “ac­tive­ly and reck­less­ly strip­ping peo­ple of le­gal pro­tec­tions to meet their mass de­por­ta­tion agen­da – at the ex­pense of our lo­cal economies, and com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­ly sta­bil­i­ty”.

In a no­tice pub­lished in the Fed­er­al Reg­is­ter on Tues­day, Trump’s De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty (DHS) said it is “ter­mi­nat­ing the cat­e­gor­i­cal pa­role pro­grammes for in­ad­mis­si­ble aliens from Cu­ba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and their im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers, here­inafter re­ferred to as ‘CHNV pa­role pro­grammes’ that DHS an­nounced in 2022 and 2023.

“DHS is ter­mi­nat­ing the CHNV pa­role pro­grams as of March 25, 2025. The tem­po­rary pa­role pe­ri­od of aliens in the Unit­ed States un­der the CHNV pa­role pro­grams and whose pa­role has not al­ready ex­pired by April 24, 2025 will ter­mi­nate on that date, un­less the Sec­re­tary makes an in­di­vid­ual de­ter­mi­na­tion to the con­trary,” the no­tice states.

“Parolees with­out a law­ful ba­sis to re­main in the Unit­ed States fol­low­ing this ter­mi­na­tion of the CHNV pa­role pro­grams must de­part the Unit­ed States be­fore their pa­role ter­mi­na­tion date,” it added.

The no­tice states that, over the pre­vi­ous two years, DHS has im­ple­ment­ed pro­grammes through which “in­ad­mis­si­ble aliens who are cit­i­zens or na­tion­als of des­ig­nat­ed coun­tries, and their im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers, could re­quest au­tho­riza­tion to trav­el to the Unit­ed States in or­der to be con­sid­ered for pa­role in­to the coun­try.

“Un­der these cat­e­gor­i­cal pa­role pro­grammes, po­ten­tial­ly el­i­gi­ble ben­e­fi­cia­ries were ad­ju­di­cat­ed on a case-by-case ba­sis, for ad­vance au­tho­riza­tion to trav­el to a US port of en­try in the in­te­ri­or of the coun­try to seek a dis­cre­tionary grant of pa­role,” it adds.

WASH­ING­TON, Mar 26, CMC – 

CMC/nk/ir/2025