Joe Biden restarts immigration programme for 4 countries with more vetting for sponsors

Biden administration restarts immigration program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela with additional vetting for financial sponsors.

The Biden administration is restarting an immigration programme that allows migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come to the United States, and it is including “additional vetting” of their U.S.-based financial sponsors following fraud concerns.

The Department of Homeland Security had suspended the programme earlier this month to investigate the concerns but indicated that an internal review found no widespread fraud among sponsors.

“Together with our existing rigorous vetting 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 exploitation of beneficiaries,” the agency said.

The programme launched in January 2023 and is a major piece of the Biden administration’s immigration policies that create or expand pathways for legal entry while restricting asylum for those who cross the border illegally.

The policy is aimed at countries that send large numbers of people to the United States and generally refuse to accept those who are deported. It is paired with commitments from Mexico to take back people from those countries who cross the U.S. border illegally.

Under the programme, the U.S. accepts up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries for two years and offers eligibility for work authorisation. To qualify, migrants must have a financial sponsor in the U.S. who vouches for them and fly into an American airport at their own expense, rather than crossing at the southern border. Those acting as sponsors and the migrants hoping to come to America undergo vetting by Homeland Security.

Republicans have repeatedly criticised the programme as an end-run around immigration laws. They immediately attacked the administration when the program was suspended early this month, pointing to it as further validation of their concerns about whether migrants were properly vetted. And they criticised the decision announced on Thursday to restart.