Biden administration restarts immigration program for 4 countries, with more vetting for sponsors
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is restarting an immigration program that allows migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come to the United States, and it is including “additional vetting” of their U.S.-based financial sponsors following fraud concerns.
The Department of Homeland Security had suspended the program earlier this month to investigate the concerns but indicated that an internal review found no widespread fraud among sponsors.
“Together with our existing rigorous vetting of potential beneficiaries seeking to travel to the United States, these new procedures for supporters have strengthened the integrity of these processes and will help protect against exploitation of beneficiaries,” the agency said.
The program launched in January 2023 is a major piece of the Biden administration’s immigration policies that create or expand pathways for legal entry while restricting asylum for those who cross the border illegally.
The Biden administration can keep operating a program that allows a limited number of migrants from four countries to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds after a federal judge dismissed a challenge from Republican-led states.
The policy is aimed at countries that send large numbers of people to the United States and generally refuse to take back those who are deported. It is paired with a commitment from Mexico to accept people from those countries who cross the southern U.S. border illegally.
Under the program, the U.S. accepts up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries for two years and offers them eligibility for work authorization. To qualify, migrants must have a financial sponsor in the U.S. who vouches for them, and must fly into an American airport at their own expense rather than crossing the southern border by land. Those acting as sponsors and the migrants hoping to come to America undergo vetting by Homeland Security.
Republicans have repeatedly criticized the program as an end-run around immigration laws. They immediately attacked the administration when the program was suspended early this month, pointing to it as further validation of their concerns about whether migrants were properly vetted.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Thursday that the additional vetting will include more scrutiny of U.S.-based sponsors’ financial records and criminal backgrounds. Sponsors will be required to submit fingerprints, and the agency will bolster steps to identify those who are fraudulent or who file numerous applications.
Homeland Security said an internal review found some cases of fraud, such as sponsors using fake Social Security numbers, but that the majority of cases it investigated had a reasonable explanation, such as a typo when a sponsor was submitting information online.
The Biden administration sees the program as a way to slow the rising numbers of migrants crossing the border without authorization.
“Since the inception of the process, a very small number of supporters were found to have fraud or criminal issues warranting referral to law enforcement for investigation and/or appropriate action,” the agency said.
Homeland Security also said it had not found issues in vetting the migrants themselves, saying those who come to the U.S. under the program “have been thoroughly screened and vetted.”
When it announced the program’s suspension, Homeland Security didn’t say when it had stopped processing requests. News of the suspension broke after the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, cited an internal agency report that raised questions about fraud.
Neither Homeland Security nor FAIR, which favors immigration restrictions, has provided that report. FAIR asserted that the report showed that 3,218 sponsors were responsible for more than 100,000 filings and that 24 of the top 1,000 Social Security numbers used by sponsors corresponded to dead people.
Concerns about sponsors seeking a quick profit surfaced almost from the start. Facebook groups with names like “Sponsors U.S.” carried dozens of posts offering and seeking financial supporters.
Since the program was launched, more than 520,000 people from the four countries have arrived in the U.S.
Arrests for illegal crossings have plummeted among the four nationalities. Cubans were arrested 5,065 times during the first half of the year, compared with more than 42,000 times in November 2022 alone. Haitians were arrested 304 times during the first six months of the year, compared with a peak of nearly 18,000 in September 2021.
Santana writes for the Associated Press.
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