WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is restarting an immigration program that allows migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the United States, and it includes “additional screening” of their U.S.-based financial sponsors after concerns about fraud.
The Department of Homeland Security suspended the program earlier this month to investigate concerns, but said an internal investigation found no widespread fraud among sponsors.
“Together with our existing rigorous screening of potential beneficiaries seeking to travel to the United States, these new procedures for supporters have strengthened the integrity of these processes and will help protect against beneficiary exploitation,” the agency said.
Launched in January 2023, the program is a key part of the Biden administration’s immigration policy. The program creates or expands avenues for legal entry while limiting asylum claims for people who cross the border illegally.
The policy targets countries that send large numbers of people to the United States and typically refuse to accept those who are deported. It is accompanied by commitments by Mexico to take back people from those countries who cross the border into the U.S. illegally.
Under the program, the U.S. will accept up to 30,000 people per month from the four countries for two years and offer work authorization. To qualify, migrants must have a financial sponsor in the U.S. who will vouch for them and fly at their own expense to a U.S. airport, rather than crossing the southern border. Those who act as sponsors and migrants hoping to come to America are screened by Homeland Security.
Republicans have repeatedly criticized the program as a way to circumvent immigration laws. They quickly attacked the administration when it was suspended earlier this month, saying it further reinforced their concerns about whether migrants were being properly screened.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Thursday that the additional screening would include more scrutiny of the financial information U.S. sponsors must submit, as well as their criminal histories. Sponsors will be required to submit fingerprints, and the agency will take steps to identify sponsors who are fraudulent and when someone submits multiple applications.
According to DHS, an internal investigation found some instances of fraud, such as the use of false social security numbers by sponsors. However, most of the cases investigated had a reasonable explanation, such as a typo when a sponsor provided information online.
“Since the start of the process, a very small number of supporters have been identified as having fraud or criminal problems which have resulted in referral to the police for investigation and/or appropriate action,” the agency said.
Homeland Security also said it had not encountered any problems screening the migrants themselves, saying those coming to the U.S. under the program “have been thoroughly screened and vetted.”
When Homeland Security announced the program’s suspension, it did not say when processing would stop. But the news came after the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates immigration restrictions, cited an internal agency report that raised questions about fraud.
Neither Homeland Security nor FAIR provided that report. FAIR claimed that the report showed that 3,218 sponsors were responsible for more than 100,000 applications and that 24 of the top 1,000 Social Security numbers used by sponsors corresponded to deceased individuals.
Concerns about sponsors looking for a quick buck surfaced almost from the start. Facebook groups with names like “Sponsors US” contained dozens of posts offering and seeking financial support.
Since the program launched, more than 520,000 people from the four countries have arrived in the U.S.
Arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen sharply among all four nationalities. Cubans were arrested 5,065 times in the first half of the year, compared to more than 42,000 arrests in November 2022 alone. Haitians were arrested 304 times in the first six months of the year, compared to a peak of almost 18,000 in September 2021.
