Palmetto State News

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) joined Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in sending a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, calling for the termination of a parole program for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan aliens (CHNV), citing widespread fraud and abuse, and claiming the program violates federal law.

The letter states that the Biden-Harris CHNV program "clearly violates the law" and outlines several failures including incentivizing illegal immigration, importing gang members and other dangerous criminals into the country, and admitting tens of thousands of aliens based on fraudulent applications. The Senators called for an immediate end to the CHNV Parole Program, enhanced border security and immigration enforcement, a comprehensive investigation into the program's failures, and restoration of congressional oversight.

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) also signed the letter.

The senators wrote, “We write to you with urgent and serious concerns regarding the Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela (CHNV) Parole Program, recently administered by the Biden-Harris administration. Between January 2023 and July 2024, this program facilitated the entry of approximately 520,000 illegal aliens via commercial air travel. Eighty percent landed in Florida. Houston, Dallas, and Austin, Texas were also among the top destinations for these aliens, accounting for 10,350 arrivals during the program’s first eight months. This program was intended to provide a pathway not authorized by Congress for unauthorized individuals from these four nations to enter our country. However, a new internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) report obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform reveals severe and systemic flaws that jeopardize our national security and public safety."

“In response to mounting evidence and growing criticism," they continued, "the Biden administration decided to temporarily halt the CHNV Parole Program in mid-July ‘out of an abundance of caution’ so it could undertake a review of supporter applications. After less than six weeks of pause," they noted that "the Department of Homeland Security recently restarted the program which now requires those who wish to sponsor illegal aliens to submit fingerprints for vetting. Officials announced plans to more closely review financial and criminal records of would-be sponsors and increase scrutiny of repeat sponsors.”

“These stop-gap marginal improvements do not solve the fundamental fraud, failure, and illegality of the CHNV program," concluded the senators. "This fundamentally-flawed program must be permanently dismantled...Our nation’s security demands that we act decisively...We must restore confidence in our immigration policies.”