The issuance of travel permits for beneficiaries of humanitarian parole, suspended on August 2 due to an internal report revealing significant levels of fraud, could soon be reactivated, NBC reported on Wednesday.
"It could be revived by the Biden administration as soon as this week, although thousands of suspicious applications still need to be reviewed," two sources told NBC News.
The source added that the administration is eager to resume the program as soon as possible because the authorities are aware that the parole was "dissuading migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from crossing the border illegally," and they fear a rebound in illegal border crossings.
Sources familiar with the review of the nearly 101,000 sponsor applications said that employees from the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate of USCIS had reviewed more than two-thirds of the suspicious applications by last week.
They had about 30,000 left to review, but the source added that they might not finish before the program is reinstated, the resumption of which, according to sources, would be imminent.
So far, six sponsorship applications have been submitted to the National Security Investigations headquarters, a division of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement assigned through an agreement between USCIS and ICE to investigate potential criminal immigration fraud, sources familiar with the review said, not providing further details about that half dozen cases.
A US government official told the mentioned American network that when the program resumes, sponsor applications will be manually reviewed in small batches, with improved screening procedures.
From now on, any sponsor believed to be involved in fraud will be immediately referred for a more in-depth investigation.
More than 2.6 million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have applied to enter through the program.
As of July, more than 530,000 immigrants had been authorized to travel to the United States under the program, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
It is unclear how many of those approved applicants were brought to the United States with the help of the 3,200 "serial sponsors" identified by the report that revealed the massive fraud.
It is also unclear whether the 101,000 applications marked for review were from people who had already entered the United States, from people whose applications were rejected, or a combination of both.
Temporary suspension of travel permits for beneficiaries of humanitarian parole.
On August 2, the U.S. government temporarily froze travel permits for beneficiaries of the humanitarian parole program following an internal report that revealed significant levels of fraud, according to Fox News citing a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The government source indicated that "as a precaution" they have suspended the issuance of advance travel authorizations for the program since mid-July, while they proceed to thoroughly review the applications from the sponsors, which is where the focus of fraud lies.
The CBP stopped issuing travel authorizations to Venezuelans on July 6 and to Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians since July 18.
The authorities indicated that they will resume processing as soon as possible "with the appropriate safeguards," although they did not provide a likely date for the return of travel permit concessions.
By the end of June, 106,757 Cubans had benefited from the program, and about 104,130 had already traveled to U.S. territory, according to official CBP figures.
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