Sex traffickers may be using a Biden administration “parole” program to sneak illegal immigrant women into the U.S., the House Judiciary Committee revealed Wednesday in an explosive report exposing fraud in one of the Homeland Security Department’s marquee border operations.
Welfare recipients, people involved with criminal activity and even other illegal immigrants have been approved as sponsors for parolees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV).
Homeland Security acknowledged it doesn’t have a way to check criminal records of would-be sponsors. Indeed, the department said it approved sponsors who reported that at least some of their income came from illegal sources such as criminal activity.
The report, provided first to The Washington Times, is the latest setback for the CHNV program, which was paused this summer after shocking allegations of fraud.
“This oversight has uncovered how the Biden-Harris Administration’s willingness to cast aside the best interests of Americans has enabled fraud, undermined national security, and endangered public safety, all in favor of ensuring that hundreds of thousands of otherwise illegal aliens can come to the U.S. through CHNV,” the committee said in the interim staff report.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas created the CHNV program two years ago as a startling surge of Venezuelans rushed to the U.S. border.
His idea was to encourage the migrants to skip the border and fly directly into airports, relieving pressure on Border Patrol agents. The migrants are still in the U.S. as inadmissible aliens, meaning they lack legal status, could be deported at any time and must leave the country when their two-year parole period expires.
Mr. Mayorkas’ idea was that all arrivals would need a U.S.-based sponsor who would promise to take care of them and ensure they didn’t become burdens on taxpayers.
The sponsorship program has been plagued by fraud.
An internal investigation at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services found the list of applicants included Venezuelan gang members, dead people and stolen identities. One case even used former first lady Michelle Obama’s passport number.
The report from the staff of Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, suggests the program was fatally flawed from conception and allowed people at bad risk to act as sponsors.
Among the committee’s findings:
• At least 336 recipients of welfare benefits were approved as sponsors. The report said sponsors are supposed to prove they can support migrants without them becoming dependent on the government.
• 21 sponsorship applications were approved for people who admitted at least some of their income came from illegal sources. Homeland Security told the committee that the department thought legal sources provided “sufficient income.”
• Homeland Security can’t say how many sponsors have criminal records beyond their financial entanglements.
The department said it is “not aware” of any cases in which a person with a serious criminal record was approved as a sponsor.
An internal document obtained by the committee said that the USCIS doesn’t perform criminal records checks and is not authorized to run names through FBI databases.
• More than 80,000 sponsors were noncitizens with, at best, only temporary visas to be in the U.S. That included 311 DACA recipients, nearly 20,000 asylum-seekers and 224 other parolees.
“In other words, the Biden-Harris Administration’s CHNV program incentivizes a new form of chain migration, in which foreign nationals in the U.S. on a temporary basis can sponsor additional foreign nationals to travel to the U.S. on a temporary basis, who can then sponsor additional foreign nationals to enter the country, and so on,” the committee report said.
• The sex trafficker issue was raised after Homeland Security analysts found large numbers of electronic applications filed from the same Internet Protocol addresses. In one case, a single address filed 21 sponsorship applications, and 18 of them were for female migrants — six of them younger than 18.
• Homeland Security doesn’t appear to be monitoring sponsors to determine whether they are supporting the migrants as promised. Officials told the committee they have a complaint line for government agencies to “share concerns” but had received no referrals as of Aug. 6.
Shocking evidence shows supporters aren’t living up to their promises.
In one case, a Haitian man was arrested on a charge of raping a fellow migrant in a taxpayer-funded migrant shelter in Massachusetts and was in the U.S. on parole.
Emilio Gonzalez, who ran USCIS in the Bush administration, said the parole program was flawed from the start.
“The premise of the program is to get as many people into the U.S. as possible, away from Congress’ and the public’s eye,” he said.
CHNV is one of several parole programs Mr. Mayorkas created during the Biden administration. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reel in the programs as he pursues a stricter policy toward illegal immigration.
Democrats at a Judiciary Committee hearing examining the treatment of illegal immigrant children said Wednesday that they don’t expect the Trump administration to do any better than past presidents.
“I won’t be holding my breath,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat.
USCIS, which approves the sponsorships, and Customs and Border Protection, which issues parole, are responsible for CHNV.
The program has proved wildly popular.
Some 3 million sponsorship applications have been filed and some 650,200 had been approved as of Aug. 6.
As of Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2024, 531,000 migrants had arrived under the program. By early August, more than 400,000 had been granted work permits, meaning they could legally compete with Americans for jobs.
Haitian migrants have accounted for nearly 1.5 million of the sponsorship applications. Cubans are second at about 760,000, Venezuelans are third at more than 432,300 applications, and Nicaraguans trailed with 178,000 sponsorship requests.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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