The Biden-Harris Administration has halted a highly controversial program that allowed tens of thousands of migrants from four countries to fly directly into the U.S. every month after it was reportedly discovered that the system was being abused by widespread fraud.
Fox News reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) paused the program that allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) to come into the U.S. each month under the Biden-Harris Administration’s use of parole, which some critics have said is illegal.
The report said that Congress discovered that an internal report found “large amounts of fraud in applications for those sponsoring the applicants.”
“The focus is on issues with supporter filings, and not with the filings from the beneficiaries of the program themselves,” the report said.
A spokesperson for the department claimed that it takes abuse of its systems “very seriously”.
“Where fraud is identified, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will investigate and litigate applicable cases in immigration court and make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice,” the spokesperson claimed. “Out of an abundance of caution, DHS has temporarily paused the issuance of advanced travel authorizations for new beneficiaries while it undertakes a review of supporter applications. DHS will restart application processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards.”
Forms of those applying for program included social security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers that had been used hundreds of times.
Part of the internal report “showed that 100,948 forms were filled out by 3,218 serial sponsors — those whose number appears on 20 or more forms,” FNC reported. “It also found that 24 of the 1,000 most used numbers belonged to a dead person. Meanwhile, 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on over 19,000 forms. Those addresses included storage units. One sponsor phone number was submitted on over 2,000 forms, and there were 2,839 forms with non-existent sponsor zip codes, according to the leak.”
House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) said the discovery “vindicates every warning we have ever issued about the unlawful CHNV mass-parole program.”
“It also exposes the lie by administration officials, like now-impeached DHS Secretary Mayorkas, about the quality and extent of the vetting process—not just for the inadmissible aliens seeking entry, but those attempting to sponsor them,” he said. “We issued a subpoena last year to compel documents regarding this program, and while DHS partially complied, the department remains delinquent in producing certain documents and communications relating to the program.”
Green said that the Biden-Harris mass-parole program was illegal and was created to spare the administration of the “political embarrassment and bad optics of overrun borders.”
Former Acting Secretary of DHS Chad Wolf also called the Biden-Harris program illegal.
“This is not a surprise and was predictable. We’ve been told each parole application was being individually evaluated. That was an outstanding lie and the result is unacceptable,” he posted on X. “Time and again Biden-Harris immigration actions run counter to our national security. There needs to be significant oversight of USCIS from the DHS OIG and Congress.”