WASHINGTON, D.C. – FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement after the Trump administration moved to preemptively revoke the lawful status of over 532,000 humanitarian parole beneficiaries, including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV):
“It has been decades since we have seen a positive overhaul of our immigration laws that would benefit our country. Yet, the “CHNV” humanitarian parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans — alongside parole pathways for Ukrainians and Afghans — were such a critical improvement to our immigration system. Preemptively revoking legal status is the wrong approach that will destabilize lives, hurt these communities and ultimately all Americans.
“These individuals entered the U.S. through legal migration pathways, following a process laid out by the United States government under the promise they would have allotted time to pursue an immigration claim. Parole authority has been used by every president of both parties for seven decades, and the results here have been a tremendous success. Americans have sponsored these individuals. They’ve been able to gain work authorization and are living and contributing to nearly every corner of our country.
“Legal pathways like CHNV played a critical role in reducing pressure at the border. Unauthorized crossings from these countries plummeted by over 90% by 2024. These pathways provided a safe, orderly alternative. Dismantling them will hurt our economy, where this effort could remove up to 240,000 workers with work permits from the U.S. labor force, including 40,000 in manufacturing, 30,000 in leisure and hospitality, 30,000 in construction, and 30,000 in health care, according to new data by FWD.us set to be released this week.
“We know the Better Way Forward for building a modern immigration system. Policymakers should embrace evidence-based policy interventions to reduce unauthorized migration. We should improve legal pathways such as these that support U.S. interests and not throw hundreds of thousands of people into chaos.”
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