On March 25, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice in the Federal Register that it will terminate the humanitarian parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that gave sponsored individuals the ability to live and work in the United States for up to two years (the CHNV program). This notice followed an announcement from the Biden administration in October 2024 stating that DHS would not extend legal status for individuals who entered the United States under the CHNV program, as well as President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14165, which announced his intention to terminate the program.
The CHNV program will terminate on April 24, 2025, ending parole for individuals who entered the United States under the CHNV program if their parole had not already ended sooner. Those individuals will lose their lawful status to be in the United States on that date. As of Jan. 22, 2025, approximately 532,000 individuals had arrived in the United States under the program.
DHS stated its intent to begin, on April 24, to remove parolees who have not been conferred another immigration benefit that allows them to lawfully remain in the United States. Priority for removal actions is anyone who, prior to the March 25 publication of the notice:
- had not properly filed an immigration benefit request with the appropriate fee (or fee waiver request) to obtain a lawful basis to remain in the United States (e.g., adjustment of status, asylum, Temporary Protected Status, or T or U nonimmigrant status)
- was not the beneficiary of an immigration request properly filed by someone else on their behalf (e.g., petition for alien relative, fiancé petition or petition for immigrant employee)
Employers should be aware of the implications of this order on an affected employee’s work authorization — individuals who have Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) in the (c)(11) category. Parole-based employment authorization automatically terminates upon:
- The expiration date listed on the EAD
- DHS’s institution of removal proceedings against the alien, or
- A grant of voluntary departure
While employment authorization will not automatically expire at the time the parole terminates on April 24, DHS stated that it will utilize the procedures in 8 C.F.R. § 274a.14(b) to revoke parole-based work authorization granted by the CHNV program. That regulation requires DHS to serve written notice on the individual of intent to revoke the employment authorization, after which the individual should be given 15 days to submit countervailing evidence. As all parole applications are processed electronically, DHS will likely publish notices to individuals through the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service online portal.
On Feb. 28, 2025, after Trump signed EO 14165 but before publication of the termination notice, a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging the termination of the CHNV program and seeking an injunction of the termination. No ruling has been entered in the case, Doe v. Noem, to date.
