Ending the program may upend the lives of migrants who settled across the country — from Florida to California — and embedded themselves into U.S. communities.
A migrant family from Venezuela walks to a Border Patrol transport vehicle in June 2021 after they and other migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and turned themselves in. (Eric Gay/AP)
By Anumita Kaur and Lauren Kaori Gurley
Washington Post
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to terminate, for now, a Biden-era program that allowed about 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to live and work in the United States while their immigration cases proceed.
The Trump administration has maintained that the migrants pose a public safety threat, and in a statement celebrating Friday’s high court decision, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ending the programs would be “a return to America First.”
But immigration advocates say the decision upends the lives of migrants who have settled across the country — from Florida to Illinois — and embedded themselves into American communities after fleeing crises, while economists warn that removing the migrants may harm the economies where they live and work, spanning industries such as hospitality, health care and construction.
“This is the first time that an administration has come in and pulled the rug out from under people,” said Talia Inlender, deputy director at the UCLA School of Law’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “Today’s Supreme Court decision will upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who came lawfully to the U.S. through the CHNV program.”
Here’s who those half-million people are and where they live:
Friday’s decision revoked temporary legal residency for about 110,000 Cubans, 211,000 Haitians, 93,000 Nicaraguans and 117,000 Venezuelans, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data on arrivals through December 2024.
They entered the country under the Biden administration’s “humanitarian parole” program, which began in 2022, fleeing countries facing political unrest and other catastrophes. The program required them to have a U.S.-based financial sponsor, such as a relative or church member, and was meant to ease the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Those who arrived under the parole program could live and work in the United States for two years.
It’s unclear how many migrants could face deportation after the Biden administration did not renew the parole program, meaning protected status for migrants would phase out in the coming months and years depending on when the individual arrived. The Biden administration warned migrants in October to seek other legal mechanisms for remaining in the country.
Where do they live?
Among the migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who arrived under Biden’s parole program, the top state of residence is Florida, followed by Texas, according to an analysis of American Community Survey data by George Mason University economics professor Michael Clemens. Clemens’s analysis covers those who arrived in calendar year 2023.
Smaller but sizable groups have also settled in New Jersey, Illinois, Utah, California, Georgia, Ohio and Maryland.
Where do they tend to work?
These migrants tend to work in “essential jobs,” which are oftentimes in lower-wage industries that have faced labor shortages since the coronavirus pandemic, according to Clemens’s analysis.
Of those who arrived in 2023, the top industries of employment are hospitality and recreation, and construction. A large share also work in health care and education, manufacturing and retail.
What will the impacts be?
For migrants, it’s disastrous and dangerous, immigrant advocates said. “It’s going to separate families; it’s going to send people back to dangerous conditions in their home countries,” Inlender, with the UCLA School of Law, said.
The harm will also ripple across the nation, as businesses lose workers they have come to rely on and communities face the loss of populations that had become part of day-to-day life, immigration experts and economists said. “These are 500,000 workers, and they’re spread out across industries and geographies. This will be felt across the country,” said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of National Immigration Forum.
Research on the impact of past deportation efforts shows that removing immigrants from the country creates labor shortages and leads to fewer jobs for U.S.-born workers in the regions where deportations happen. The broader economy suffers, too, as spending and business expansion declines.
“All immigrants including those eligible for deportations are really important contributors to the economy overall,” said Chloe East, an economist at the University of Colorado at Denver who co-wrote a 2022 study on the effect of Obama-era deportations.
While authorities have not yet issued formal guidance, those who were granted humanitarian parole who could be affected by the ruling have already received notifications from Homeland Security that their work permits are terminated, according to immigration attorneys.
It’s an operational disaster for businesses, said Dawn Lurie, an immigration lawyer who represents employers at the firm Seyfarth Shaw. “There’s a lot of confusion and chaos, especially for employers,” Lurie said.
Who else is at risk of losing status?
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The ruling marks the second time this month that the high court has given Trump officials permission to terminate programs that protect immigrants fleeing countries racked by war or economic turmoil. The justices separately ruled last week to revoke temporary protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States, while the case plays out in lower courts.
Along with Friday’s ruling, that means about 850,000 people within a week’s span have found their provisional legal status and work authorizations in peril, Murray said, inflicting a major “collateral impact to American businesses and communities.”
That may worsen in the weeks and months to come, she added.
Trump is also seeking to roll back other Biden-era protections that have allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to remain in the United States while their cases play out, including the temporary protected status for about 520,000 people from Haiti that’s set to expire in August.
source https://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2025/05/trump-set-to-end-program-that-let-530k.html
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