(VitalNews.org) – The Biden Administration has made the call to pause a migrant sponsorship program that was intended to discourage illegal crossings along the United States-Mexico border due to concerns of fraud among sponsors.
The sponsorship program allowed up to thirty thousand migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to fly into the United States legally every month, if the American sponsors agreed to support them financially. The program was put in place in 2022 and has been in effect since then.
The Department of Homeland Security said that they stopped issuing these travel documents to people applying to the program while they investigate applications filed by United States-based sponsors.
The department said, “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.”
They continued, “DHS will restart application processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards.”
The DHS first stopped granting travel authorization to Venezuelans, but it has since expanded to pause other operations. It’s said that the pause is due to concerns raised by the fraud detection branch of the United States Citizenship Immigration Services. The issue involves the U.S. sponsors that are applying to sponsor migrants; there have been public reports that have said some people are advertising sponsorships online.
“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,” said Rep. Mark Greene of Tennessee, the Republican chair of the House Homeland Security Committee
Many officials, especially on the Republican side, have challenged this program and initiative from the start, saying that it violates laws.
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