Upon taking the reins of the country, President Donald Trump promptly abolished two immigration policies conceived in the Biden era that were designed to discourage illicit border crossings by offering migrants broader legal avenues into the United States. Trump’s stance is that these policies were illegitimate from inception leading him to repeal them via an executive order only a few hours into his presidency. An unveiled directive, which broadens the expulsion powers of federal immigration agencies, now puts people at risk who originally entered under these programs. Jesús Canelon, who entered the country through a humanitarian parole procedure for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, along with hundreds of thousands of others, expressed grave concern.
The defunct program once offered an avenue for migrants who had a U.S. sponsor to legally enter the country by aircraft and receive a temporary work permit valid for two years. Canelon heralded this as a transformative prospect, which is now undergoing an absurd twist. In his naive opinion, it not only altered his life but also provided succor to his family in Venezuela, thanks to his ability to work in the U.S. However, whether his perspective is a general consensus or merely an instance among many contrasting sentiments is debatable.
The 29-year-old man, with a second child expecting, harbors a weighty fear that his growing family will yet have to make the return journey to Venezuela, a country he abandoned because of its economic crisis. His woes don’t garner universal sympathy, however, as his story isn’t unique and there are valid counter-narratives that suggest alternatives to rely on illegal immigration as a means to pursue a better life.
Republicans have consistently critiqued that such parole programs, birthed under the Biden administration, lacked comprehensive scrutiny of the applicants and permitted migrants to infiltrate the country who, according to them, lack any valid premise for their incursion into the United States. Effectively, Trump addressed in his campaign video, ‘I will put an end to the shocking exploitation of the parole authority.’
An assertion from a spokesperson of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security indicated the ongoing steps that intend to ‘restore the humanitarian parole program to its supposed objective of subjecting migrants to an individual-specific evaluation.’ Quite rightly, the new administration has been quite proactive in implementing alterations in immigration policy since its earliest days in office, a departure from the somewhat lenient stance of the previous administration.
Current estimates suggest approximately 1.5 million individuals having infiltrated the country are now grappling with this uncertain status. Despite the fact that parole does not convert into a green card, they are expected to seek asylum or an alternative status known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which again is temporary. The overwhelming influx suggests that these institutional safeguards provided by the Biden administration were overused and abused.
In an act of rather hasty benevolence, the Biden administration, just before its exit, extended the TPS for migrants from specified countries, who had already found their way into the United States, until the 2nd of October, 2026. Unfortunately, such acts rather served to incentivize illegal immigration instead of dissuading it. Canelon, still harboring unrealistic expectations, waits to see if his application secures approval.
Despite his belief, he insisted, ‘We only crave the opportunity to reside here legally and contribute positively to the country.’ This narrative, while emotionally appealing, tends to gloss over the importance of legal avenues and thorough vetting in migration processes. Consequently, the fate of TPS under the new, refreshingly stringent administrative regime remains obscure. During his first term, Trump aimed to roll back TPS and initiated a review with an executive order to verify that its ‘designations are appropriately limited in scope.’
Allegedly, immigrant advocacy groups, the likes of CASA, declare their readiness for an extensive legal contestation rather than supporting a solution that respects legal boundaries. Their irresponsibility echoes in the words of CASA’s Executive Director Gustavo Torres, who said, ‘We are ready, and we have been preparing our families, our community, and this organization to respond because we knew that he was going to again attempt legal enforcement.’
Such organizations are turning a deaf ear to the subtleties of balanced immigration policy and legal requirements. They succumb to carrying the banner of immigrants’ rights while neglecting to acknowledge the critical oversight that uncontrolled immigration presents. The Biden-era policy adaptations did little to dissuade illicit border crossings; rather, they tellingly incentivized the complicated scenario that now necessitates arduous and politically petulant legal battles.
While it’s essential to consider humanitarian factors in shaping immigration policies, a carte blanche approach undermines the very principles of sovereignty and respect for the rule of law that mark a mature, democratic country. The seemingly benign policies of the Biden administration had the unintended effect of sending mixed signals to potential immigrants about their chances of unhindered entry and easy life in the United States.
It is worrying that these advocacy groups are focusing more on thwarting administration measures than fostering an environment in which legal immigration is encouraged and valued. Their readiness to prepare families and communities ‘for the attack’ suggests a misplaced adversity to the implementation of legitimate immigration enforcement rather than understanding the complexity and necessity of legal border controls.
There is no denying that a radical paradigm shift is required. The Biden-Harris administration’s approach to immigration was undoubtedly floored, but it falls onto the new management to restructure these ill-conceived policies. Changing the narrative from one that indulges and incites perfunctory immigration to one that respects the gravity of the matter is a hefty task, but infusing a sense of legality and legitimacy into immigration procedures is of paramount importance.
It’s also unfathomably critical that those waiting on their applications or those who’ve acquired their TPS find secure and legal footing within the new policy. Misplaced humanitarian incentives that ignore legal processes create a disservice to those who follow the legal pathway for immigration. Advocating for a balanced immigration policy that takes into consideration both humanitarian concerns and a nation’s capacity to host new entrants can help mitigate such quandaries in the future.