stateJoined has temporarily suspended the award of New humanitarian permits for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuelaknown as “parole,” which allowed people from these countries to legally travel and enter the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security informed EFE on Friday about the decision to pause the program, which grants entry to up to 30,000 people from these four countries to the US each month and allows you to obtain a work permit for a period of two years.

The program, which began in late 2022 only for Venezuelan citizens and was later expanded to include the other three nationalities, has allowed the entry of almost half a million migrants to the US, according to DHS data. The decision to freeze the program is related to allegations of fraud in the applications, according to the American network Fox News on Friday.

A DHS spokeswoman explained that the agency decided “out of an abundance of caution” to freeze the allocation of travel authorizations. “while reviewing sponsor applications”The agency “will restart processing applications as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards,” the spokeswoman said in a written statement.

To ask for permission, Migrants need to have a sponsor in the US who already has legal status and demonstrate sufficient income to financially support the program beneficiary. According to Fox, an “internal report” by DHS found “high levels of fraud” in sponsor applications, which led to a pause in the granting of new permits since last month.

The program, which has been the target of criticism and legal action by the conservative oppositionis part of the measures of the Joe Biden Government to stop migration at the southern border. The measure, added to the asylum restrictions that the Government has been implementing in the last two years, has contributed to reducing the number of people from these four countries who are arrested at the border with Mexico.

The decline has been especially noticeable in apprehensions of people from Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua, according to CBP data. In December 2022, a month before the program was expanded to include these nationalities, authorities reported more than 30,000 apprehensions of migrants from the three countries.

That number dropped dramatically to fewer than 900 arrests in February 2023 and has remained below 15,000 arrests per month since then. People who arrive on parole to the U.S. are granted temporary authorization for two years to legally remain in the U.S. and obtain a work permit.