Trump administration is giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials the power to quickly deport migrants who were allowed into the country temporarily under Biden-era programmes, according to an internal govt memo seen by NYT.
The memo, signed Thursday, offers ICE officials a road map on how to use expansive powers that were long reserved for encounters at the southern border to quickly remove migrants. It also appears to give officials the ability to expel migrants in two major Biden-era programmes that have allowed over a million people to enter the country temporarily.
Those programmes – an app called CBP One that migrants could use to try to schedule appointments to enter the US, and an initiative that let in certain migrants fleeing Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti – were key pillars of the Biden admin’s efforts to discourage illegal entries by allowing certain legal pathways. Immigrant advocates also worried the memo could apply to Afghan and Ukrainian immigrants brought to the US under separate programmes.
The decision is sure to raise fears among a large class of immigrants, many of whom fled desperate conditions, who believed they were in the US legally and might be afraid to return to home countries.
The migrants were given a grant to stay in the country for up to two years under a temporary legal status known as “parole.” The memo appears to allow for their deportation, regardless of whether they have reached the end of that legal status. In total, around 1.4 million migrants entered the country through the two programmes since 2023.