The end of humanitarian parole: Three million migrants on the verge of deportation from the US in the next two years

It was President Joe Biden himself who decided not to extend the humanitarian parole program that his administration implemented two years ago to protect immigrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua from deportation.

The decision was announced by the Biden administration on Friday, leaving more than half a million people vulnerable to being expelled from the United States in the coming months. But humanitarian parole isn’t the only federal program that’s at risk of disappearing soon. Added to this is the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Together, these three legal safeguards allow around three million immigrants to reside temporarily in the country legally. However, all of these statuses could expire between now and 2026, especially if Donald Trump returns to the presidency. The Republican candidate has promised to repeal, or at least restrict, the three programs.

A new report shows that up to 2.7 million people could lose protection from deportation during a second Trump administration. “Many people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and beneficiaries of humanitarian parole and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program could be deported” in the next two years, according to a study published by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) last week. Many of these 2.7 million immigrants, whose personal information is already in the hands of the government and whose whereabouts are easier to track than that of irregular immigrants, would be easy targets for the mass deportation that the former president intends to carry out if he returns to the White House.

The NFAP admits that it’s impossible to predict with certainty how many of these people would leave voluntarily — given the conditions in their home countries — and how many would have to be expelled. “The vast majority face dismal prospects if forced to return to their birth countries,” the Virginia-based nonpartisan research organization notes in its report. Many of the 2.7 million individuals whose protections expire between now and 2026 have lived in the United States for a decade or more.

Looking at each program, the analysis — which is based on data from the Department of Homeland Security and other government sources — finds that about 1,312,000 people have been granted humanitarian parole during the Biden administration. Of those, about 530,000 come from Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. Following Biden’s announcement that he won’t renew protections for these immigrants — whose permits expire between this October and January of next year, when the two-year period established in the program is up — Trump will most likely try to end the policy entirely should he win the elections in November. For now, the program will continue to accept new applications, but Trump has promised to get rid of humanitarian parole if he’s re-elected. “Get ready to leave,” he warned, in an interview with Fox News last week.

As for TPS, 863,880 people live in the United States under this protection. They come from 16 designated countries, including Venezuela, Haiti and El Salvador. 13 of these nationalities will see their protections expire next year (unless they’re extended), while the remaining three will see them end in 2026.

Trump already tried to end TPS when he was president. During his term (2017-2021), he tried to strip this protection from several nationalities, including Haitians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and Hondurans. His decision would have left some 300,000 people vulnerable to deportation. Ultimately, however, a series of lawsuits prevented him from doing so.

Finally, there are 535,030 DACA beneficiaries in the country, according to the latest figures from June. In September of 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would end this program that protects so-called “dreamers” — young people without legal status who came to the United States as children — from deportation. Although the Supreme Court stopped that decision and upheld the beneficiaries’ protections, a series of appeals and subsequent rulings could bring the program back to the high court later this year, or in 2025. The court, now stacked with a conservative majority that was consolidated by Trump himself, “could leave DACA beneficiaries unprotected from deportation unless they obtain another form of relief or a lawful status,” the NFAP emphasizes.

Venezuelans and Haitians in the crosshairs

Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants, who represent 32% of the 2.7 million people whose protections expire in the next two years, have been in the crosshairs of the Trump-Vance campaign. The Republican ticket has accused the Haitian community of eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio, while claiming that the Venezuelan community is made up of criminal gangs like the Tren de Aragua that are “attacking towns and cities throughout the Midwest.” Therefore, the NFAP expects that a second Trump administration would prioritize eliminating protections for these two nationalities.

In total, 875,335 Venezuelans and Haitians are in the United States legally thanks to TPS and humanitarian parole. This is according to the latest government figures. The majority of them, around 500,000, have TPS, an immigration status granted to people from specific countries that are considered too dangerous to return to, either due to natural disasters or armed conflict. With TPS, they are allowed to live and work legally in the United States on a temporary basis.

If Trump follows through on his promises and doesn’t extend this program for Venezuelans when it expires in September of 2025 and for Haitians in February of 2026, many of these immigrants will be left in a state of “limbo,” as denounced by the NFAP. This is because the Venezuelan government can refuse to allow its own citizens to return, while the violence in Haiti — the reason these people left their country in the first place — still remains unchecked today.

As for humanitarian parole, 116,000 Venezuelans and 210,000 Haitians have managed, through the protection of a sponsor in the United States, to enter the country with a two-year authorization to live and work legally. However, these Venezuelans will see their protections expire at the end of this month. As for Haitians, the expiration date comes in January of 2025. If they don’t opt for other legal avenues to remain in the country, such as TPS or asylum, they could be deported in the coming months, whether under a Republican or Democratic presidency.

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