Chairman Green on DHS Temporarily Halting Unlawful CHNV Mass-Parole Program: “Vindicates Every Warning We Have Issued”

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) released the following statement after reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has temporarily suspended its unlawful mass-parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) due to concerns about widespread fraud.
According to the report from Fox News' Adam Shaw, "The internal report found that forms from those applying for the program included social security numbers, addresses and phone numbers being used hundreds of times in some cases. … 100,948 forms were filled out by 3,218 serial sponsors-those whose number appears on 20 or more forms. 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."
"This admission by the Biden-Harris administration 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. 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.
"This is exactly what happens when you create an unlawful mass-parole program in order to spare your administration the political embarrassment and bad optics of overrun borders. The Biden-Harris administration should terminate the CHNV program immediately."
Background:
The Immigration and Nationality Act grants limited authority to grant parole and release for otherwise inadmissible aliens into the country "on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit." Since the official announcement of the program in January 2023, however, through June 2024, nearly 500,000 inadmissible aliens have arrived at U.S. ports of entry via the CHNV program.
In April 2024, the Committee released documents obtained through a subpoena issued to DHS that identified over 50 airport locations, including the nation's capital, where inadmissible aliens have been flown into the country and processed by DHS for release. This came after Chairman Green sent a follow-up letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in August 2023, demanding compliance with the Committee's August 22, 2023, subpoena for critical data and information regarding the CHNV parole program. The Committee first requested this information on April 27, 2023, and after 103 days of delinquency from DHS, the Committee issued a subpoena to DHS, at which point the requested documents and information were produced.
According to these documents, as of mid-October 2023, there were 1.6 million inadmissible aliens awaiting travel authorizations through the CHNV program. In the documents, DHS admitted that none of these individuals have a legal basis to enter the country before being paroled through the program, stating, "All individuals paroled into the United States are, by definition, inadmissible, including those paroled under the CHNV Processes."
In June, CIS released new documents regarding the CHNV program, revealing documents that show inadmissible aliens have been departed not just from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but from more than 70 others worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Great Britain, Hong Kong, St. Lucia, and Sweden. This demonstrates that many who are making use of the Biden administration's mass-parole program have settled comfortably in other nations and likely have no legitimate grounds for claiming protections within the United States.
In March 2024, a Haitian national who entered the country through the CHNV program, was arrested for aggravated rape of a 15-year-old girl in Rockland, Massachusetts.

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