The U.S. recently paused immigration applications for certain migrants. Who were the applications paused for, and what does this mean?
The U.S. paused applications for immigration benefits such as Temporary Protected Status and asylum for people admitted during the Biden Administration’s parole programs, including Uniting for Ukraine and the CHNV program for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Cubans admitted under these programs have the option to apply for a green card under the Cuban Adjustment Act. This pause stops people legally admitted to the U.S. under these programs from accessing existing legal pathways to remain in the U.S. for longer than their parole term would allow.
While these immigrants still qualify for these legal pathways, the processing pause will create even longer delays than already exist for those immigrating to the U.S.
The pause on applications applies to programs that allowed migrants to come to the U.S. legally through an immigration policy known as parole. What is parole?
Parole is a power Congress granted the executive branch to allow people to enter the U.S. temporarily, often for humanitarian reasons. Parole under Uniting for Ukraine was exactly this – temporary humanitarian entry to the U.S. for Ukrainians whose country is an active war zone due to the egregious invasion by Russia. Parole for CHNV applicants provided a vetted legal option for migrants who wanted to request protection in the U.S. while still in their home country rather than paying a smuggler to bring them to the U.S.-Mexico border to request asylum.
While new migrants can’t come to the U.S. through parole programs, what does this pause mean for migrants currently in the U.S. under this law?
This pause means that these individuals, who are seeking to utilize other lawful immigration pathways that exist in current U.S. law, are not currently able to access those pathways. Parole is temporary. If that parole expires without an extension, which must be granted by the executive branch, those individuals must leave or face removal by the U.S. government. The pause means that their parole may expire before their applications for these other lawful pathways are approved.
How will this pause in applications and parole programs affect the U.S. immigration system at large?
The U.S. legal immigration system, in a typical year, admits around 1 million immigrants. This is fewer than the number we need to maintain our labor force and population growth. Some lawful pathways are horrendously backlogged. Some green card categories make applicants wait decades before their green card is granted due to per country caps which limit the number of green cards granted each year. Pausing lawful programs like this only exacerbate backlogs.
While these parole programs were politically controversial, they admitted migrants via legal pathways, boosting our labor force in a time when the U.S. has millions of open jobs and not enough native-born people to fill them. Parole programs, asylum, and Temporary Protected Status are not perfect immigration vehicles – better policy would be to expand green cards to include more people with skills to fill open jobs. Only Congress can make that change to the law. But until Congress acts, these other legal migration channels do benefit the U.S. economy by providing willing workers.
