|
The Trump administration's crackdown on immigration is not only targeting those who have entered or are attempting to enter the United States illegally, but also limiting pathways for those trying to immigrate legally, CBS News reported.
This includes significant restrictions on refugee admissions and halting various legal immigration programs that have been in place for years. One of the first actions Trump took after assuming office was the indefinite suspension of the US refugee admissions program. This suspension effectively banned the entry of all refugees, including those fleeing war-torn regions like Ukraine, Afghanistan, and countries in Central America such as Venezuela and Haiti. Refugees are a special legal classification, which involves a rigorous vetting process, and as part of the suspension, more than 22,000 refugees who had already been approved for resettlement were stranded. The process for refugees typically takes 18 to 24 months, involving multiple rounds of interviews, security screenings, and medical checks. In addition to suspending refugee admissions, the Trump administration also halted a number of programs that offered legal pathways for immigrants from countries facing dire crises. This included stopping the use of the parole immigration policy, which allows individuals to be admitted on humanitarian or public interest grounds. Under this policy, refugees from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other nations in crisis were granted entry into the US on parole. The administration has since ordered that parole applications for these refugees, including Ukrainians sponsored by Americans through the Uniting for Ukraine initiative, be stopped. Roughly 240,000 Ukrainians had entered the US through this process. The administration also stopped renewing parole status for Afghans who were brought to the US after the fall of Kabul in 2021. While many of the 70,000 Afghan evacuees have already gained asylum or special visas for those who aided the American military, this move could cause some individuals to lose their legal status. The directive also impacted parole programs for other immigrant groups, including a sponsorship initiative for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, as well as a policy that allowed Central American youth to reunite with relatives in the US, reported CBS News Shortly after Trump's inauguration, his administration also shut down the mobile application CBP One, which had allowed migrants in Mexico to request a scheduled entry into the US at official border points. Under the Biden administration, the app had been used to process 1,500 migrants per day, facilitating a more organised way for asylum seekers to present themselves at ports of entry. Last week, the Trump administration also authorised Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to revoke the parole status of those who had entered the US under Biden's administration, including over 530,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, as well as nearly one million migrants who had used CBP One. These actions are part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to limit immigration pathways, regardless of whether individuals enter legally or illegally. Additionally, Trump has been pushing to upend birthright citizenship, which for now has been blocked in the courts. This policy would deny US citizenship to children born in the country to parents on temporary visas or in the US illegally. Trump's actions have sparked strong reactions from both refugee advocates and immigration critics. CBS News quoted Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge, a refugee resettlement group, expressing concern over the suspension of refugee arrivals, saying, "Canceling flights for already approved refugees who have waited years as they've gone through extreme vetting betrays promises we made in creating this bipartisan legal program." On the other side, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, defended the Trump administration's stance, claiming that these measures were necessary to counteract what he sees as abuses of the parole system by the Biden administration. According to Krikorian, the parole authority was being used by Biden as "a means of essentially freelancing his own parallel immigration system outside the law," CBS News reported. (ANI)
|
