Homeland suspends illegal immigrant parole program over fraud concerns

House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green on Friday celebrated the Biden administration's pause on a mass parole program for migrants, claiming the decision "vindicates every warning we have issued.”

The Department of Homeland Security paused the program in mid-July, after an internal report found a large amount of fraud in applications for those sponsoring the applicants, according to Fox News. The program allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the United States each month if they have a stateside sponsor.

Republicans have raised concerns about the parole program over a lack of vetting for both applicants, and the people trying to be sponsors. But the internal report only found issues with the sponsors.

“This admission by the Biden-Harris administration vindicates every warning we have ever issued about the unlawful CHNV mass-parole program," Green said in a statement shared with Just The News. “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.”

The internal report found that the forms in some cases included social security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers that were being used hundreds of times. It also found that 24 of the 1,000 most used numbers belonged to a dead person, and that 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on over 19,000 forms. 

The report comes as the DHS sorts through more than a million applicants. As of October 2023, approximately 1.6 million applicants are waiting for DHS approval to enter the country via the parole program.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.