Chicago – October 24, 2024
The Biden administration will not be extending the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who were allowed to fly to the U.S. under a sponsorship program designed to reduce illegal border crossings, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday.
Instead, migrants who have come to the U.S. under the policy will be directed to try to obtain legal status through other immigration programs, leave the country or face deportation proceedings.
The administration first launched the sponsorship program in October 2022 to discourage Venezuelans from traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border by offering them a legal way to enter the country if American-based individuals agreed to sponsor them. It was then expanded in January 2023 to include migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, whose citizens were also crossing the U.S. southern border in record numbers at the time.
