A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction this week to prevent the Trump administration from terminating a family reunification policy.
In December, the Department of Homeland Security announced its plan to “terminate all categorical family reunification parole (FRP) programs for aliens from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras, and their immediate family members.” The effort aimed to end the “abuse of humanitarian parole which allowed poorly vetted aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process,” DHS explained.
According to the agency, “Parole was never intended to be used in this way, and DHS is returning parole to a case-by-case basis as intended by Congress. Ending the FRP programs is a necessary return to common-sense policies and a return to America First.” The programs also had “security gaps caused by insufficient vetting that malicious and fraudulent actors could exploit to enter the United States, which posed an unacceptable level of risk to the United States.”
“Under the law, the determination to parole an alien into the country should only be made on a discretionary, case-by-case basis, taking into account each alien’s unique circumstances,” a notice in the Federal Register further explains.
“The Secretary could not provide a reasoned explanation of the agency’s change in policy without acknowledging these interests. Accordingly, failure to do so was arbitrary and capricious,” the judge ruled.
While some DHS efforts have been held up in court, the agency has facilitated the removal of more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants.
More than 605,000 migrants have been deported since January 20. Furthermore, 1.9 million illegal immigrants have voluntarily left the nation. DHS called the statistics a “monumental achievement,” declaring, “We are just getting started.”
