The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to review the parole status of migrants who were brought in under a dramatic expansion of humanitarian parole by the Biden administration, opening the door for their quick removal from the country.
In an internal memo signed Thursday, and obtained by Fox News Digital, acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman noted moves he made this week to take limits off expedited removal, which allows for the rapid removal of recently-arrived migrants if they do not claim asylum or fail to meet an initial standard. The power can now be used anywhere in the U.S. for migrants in the U.S. for less than two years.
The new memo says that with those expanded powers, any immigrant whom DHS knows who could be put on expedited removal, but has not, should have their case reviewed and “consider, in exercising your enforcement discretion, whether to apply expedited removal.” The memo was first reported by The New York Times.
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President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump look on as they meet with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on inauguration day of Donald Trump’s second presidential term in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
“This may include steps to terminate any ongoing removal proceeding and/or any active parole status,” it says.
It also says that for any immigrant who has been granted parole under a policy paused, modified or terminated by the Trump administration, officers can decide whether they should be placed in removal proceedings and “review the alien’s parole status to determine, in exercising your enforcement discretion, whether parole remains appropriate in light of any changed legal or factual status.”
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The memo also notes that parole is a “positive exercise of enforcement discretion to which no alien is entitled and that parole ‘shall not be regarded as an admission of the alien.’”
This would mean that migrants who were granted parole at ports of entry after making an appointment via the CBP One app, or who were given travel authorization to be paroled under the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV), could be eligible for removal. The administration also launched parole programs for nationals from Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Nearly 1.5 million migrants were allowed in under CBP One and CHNV, and both parole channels were closed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office. The Biden administration said the expanded “lawful pathways” were part of an effort to reduce illegal crossings, but Republicans accused the administration of abusing limited parole power and allowing in migrants who should not legally have entered.
On Jan. 23, 2025, ICE San Francisco arrested Ariel Rene Romice-Patino, a citizen of Mexico unlawfully present in the United States. (ICE)
Huffman’s memo follows a memo from earlier this week in which he ordered a review of the use of parole. The memo notes that the statute demands the authority be used on a “case by case basis,” something that Republican critics claim the administration has abused. It emphasizes that parole is “a limited use authority, applicable only in a very narrow set of circumstances.”
It also claims that “it has been repeatedly abused by the Executive Branch over the past several decades in ways that are blatantly inconsistent with the statute.”
“Most important, the parole statute does not authorize categorical parole programs that make aliens presumptively eligible on the basis of some set of broadly applicable criteria,” it says.
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The memo directs the heads of (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection to compile a list of instructions, policies and procedures related to parole, review them and formulate a plan to phase out any that are not in accord with the statute.
The latest memo comes amid a flurry of moves by the administration on illegal immigration and immigration, including moves to send military to the border, end refugee resettlement, build the border wall and launch a massive deportation operation.
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ICE on Thursday arrested more than 530 illegal immigrants in another day of raids across the U.S. Agents have focused on public safety threats, but officials have said that no-one is off the table if they are in the country illegally.
