The Biden administration said it will not renew a temporary humanitarian program that allowed hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Venezuelan, Haitian, and Nicaraguan migrants to remain in the U.S. legally. It doesn’t leave many migrants with a viable avenue to legal residency and leaves them to find other immigration options or risk deportation.
What Was the CHNV Initiative?
This scheme called the CHNV Initiative, was introduced at the end of 2022 to help stop illegal crossings. It granted temporary legal status to migrants from these four nations to work and live in the United States for up to two years. Applicants had to have sponsors and be cleared by background checks. In the years since more than 530,000 migrants have taken advantage of the program to legally enter the United States and qualify for a temporary green card. Most of these migrants came from Haiti (c214,000), followed by Venezuela (117,000), Cuba (111,000), and Nicaragua (96,000).
What Happens Now?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the program will still accept new immigrants, but current migrants won’t be extended. Anyone who entered the U.S. under the program has two years to obtain another form of legal status. And if they don’t, they have to either quit the country or else be deported.
“This two-year extension is intended to enable folks to apply for humanitarian assistance or any other immigration benefits they might be eligible for,” DHS spokeswoman Naree Ketudat said. ‘They could have also worked and helped the U.S., but those who have not secured some legal redress will have to leave.
Strategies for CHNV-Affected Migrants.
The cancellation of the CHNV program is different for migrants based on their nationality.
Haitians and Venezuelans could still qualify for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which protects the immigrant from deportation and allows him to work in the United States Haitians who came before June 2024 and Venezuelans who came before July 2023 can apply for TPS.
For Cuban migrants, permanent residence is available under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a 1966 law that gives Cubans a chance to become permanent residents.
Nicaraguan migrants are in a worse position, however. Nicaraguans have no special status by law that could shield them from deportation like Cubans, Haitians, and Venezuelans. They have fewer options and will almost all need to apply for asylum — which means demonstrating that they are persecuted based on race, religion, political opinion, or other protected reasons. But asylum is difficult, and not everyone will qualify.
Criticism and Concerns
Immigration activists are also unhappy that the program was not renewed, claiming it disproportionately impacts migrants from these four countries as programs have been extended to Afghan and Ukrainian refugees to enable them to remain in the U.S. longer. Critics say that this disparity demonstrates a dissipation of American immigration policy, which could put some migrants at risk of deportation and uncertain futures.
This will likely affect a lot of migrants who depend on the CHNV program to remain legally in the United States, and the next step for them is uncertain.
