500,000 immigrants face removal as US terminates CHNV parole protections

Work permits revoked and deportation orders issued as DHS moves to end CHNV parole, impacting 500,000 immigrants who had entered the US under humanitarian protections

Immigrants who entered the United States under the Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela (CHNV) parole initiative have begun receiving termination notices instructing them to depart the country, Bloomberg reported. 

In emails sent this week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also informed each recipient that “their employment authorisation is revoked effective immediately,” the agency confirmed on Thursday. 

Last month, the US Supreme Court permitted DHS to proceed with cancelling parole benefits for roughly 500,000 people, overturning a lower court decision that had preserved those protections. The broader legal case challenging the Trump administration’s rollback of several parole programmes, including CHNV, is still moving through the courts.

 

 

Rollback of temporary protections

Ending CHNV is part of a wider effort by the current administration to unwind temporary immigration programmes that were expanded in recent years. Officials have already terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for nationals of Venezuela, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Cameroon — protections that had shielded those groups from deportation. 

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin argued that the Biden administration “had not properly vetted immigrants admitted through the programme, and that paroled immigrants had undercut American workers”. She said, “Ending the CHNV parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First.” 

 

Economic fallout looms

The CHNV pathway, announced in 2023, was designed to offer people escaping humanitarian crises a legal, orderly alternative to irregular border crossings. Demand routinely exceeded the 30,000 monthly slots, and many parolees filled hard-to-staff positions in construction, hospitality, and health care. With work permits now void, those industries could face fresh labour shortages, Bloomberg reported.

 

Immigration benefits

In a related development, US Citizenship and Immigration Services this week lifted a months-long freeze on processing other benefits — such as asylum claims and visa petitions — for parolees. That freeze, imposed in February, had cut off alternative legal routes just weeks before parole protections were rescinded. 

The notice rollout coincided with President Donald Trump’s pledge to issue an order protecting farmworkers from deportation, following sustained pressure from agricultural producers. 

 

 

Support for farmers, hotels

At a White House event on Thursday, Trump addressed concerns from agricultural and hospitality sectors, stating, “Our farmers are being hurt badly... and we’re going to have to do something about that.” He said, “We’re going to have an order on that pretty soon, I think... and leisure, too — hotels.” 

He echoed the sentiment in a Truth Social post, writing, “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”

 

Trump vows to expel immigrant

Trump also alleged that many immigrants who arrived during President Joe Biden’s term are seeking these jobs. “This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the criminals out of the USA. Changes are coming,” he said. 

While he suggested that a new executive order is in the works, Trump did not provide specifics about its content or a timeline for implementation.