WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is pushing for a deal on border security and Ukraine funding, but a major sticking point in congressional negotiations has become whether to preserve the president’s authority to allow migrants into the U.S. for special cases during emergencies or global unrest.
Republicans deride the authority, known as humanitarian parole, as a Biden administration end run around Congress that allows into the U.S. large numbers of migrants who further tax an already overextended immigration system.
But that power to allow in certain immigrants at certain times is not new or particularly novel. It has been used across political lines for decades to admit people from Hungary in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1970s and Iraqi Kurds over the 1990s. For recipients, it can be a lifeline.
“I would be very unhappy if I had to stay in Cuba,” she said. “You have no future, you can’t dream. Here I have been able to do everything.”
Voters are increasingly preoccupied with immigration, and it’s expected to be a major driver in the 2024 election. The Democratic administration has been heavily criticized by Republicans who say its policies have only encouraged more migrants to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
But the U.S. immigration system has been increasingly strained for years, with each presidential administration testing executive power limits while Congress all along has refused to act on immigration policy. The Biden administration’s approach — to crack down on illegal crossings while opening up new ways for those who come by air with sponsors — is only the latest in a long string of attempts to bring the nation’s immigration system under control.
The authority employed by the administration is known as “parole” because migrants would otherwise be placed in detention as their immigration cases were heard. Instead they are “paroled” or allowed into the U.S. But the authority isn’t related to the criminal justice idea of a person who has been paroled from prison after serving time following a conviction.
Under Biden, the U.S. has relied heavily on humanitarian parole. The U.S. airlifted nearly 80,000 Afghans from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and brought them to the U.S. after the Taliban takeover. The U.S. has admitted tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled after the Russian invasion.
In January 2023, the administration announced a plan to admit 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, provided those migrants had a financial sponsor and flew to the U.S. instead of going to the U.S.-Mexico border for entry. The U.S. has created a mobile app for people to apply online where they are, instead of traveling to the U.S.
Democrats in the Senate and immigrant advocates say parole is a valuable tool that provides urgent relief for people fleeing unrest and helps manage the border. Before the plan, migrants from those nations were the vast majority of people entering the U.S. illegally. Afterward, arrests for those nationalities dropped dramatically.
“That is a great model for the future that we have also seen reduce congestion at the border,” said Andrea Flores, who worked as a policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations and is now a vice president at FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization.
Over the years, parole has been used to offer quick safe haven. Administration officials are reluctant to cut off the ability to use the authority not just now, but into the future.
“It is very important to understand that it is used today as a way that the administration is able to better manage the flow, in a planful way, of individuals to the border,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democrat in Senate negotiations.
