https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-parole-migrants-us-expansion-biden/The Biden administration has welcomed over half a million migrants under programs designed to reduce illegal border entries or offer a safe haven to refugees, using a 1950s law to launch the largest expansion of legal immigration in modern U.S. history, unpublished government data obtained by CBS News show.
In less than two years, the administration has allowed at least 541,000 migrants to enter the U.S. through the immigration parole authority, which gives federal officials the power to authorize the entry of foreigners who lack visas, according to internal government statistics, court records and public reports.
The unprecedented use of the parole authority has allowed officials to divert migration away from the southern border by offering would-be migrants a legal and safe alternative to journeying to the U.S. with the help of smugglers and entering the country unlawfully. It has also given the administration a faster way to resettle refugees as it attempts to rebuild a resettlement system gutted by drastic Trump-era cuts.
Officials have invoked the parole authority to welcome roughly 168,400 Latin American and Caribbean migrants with U.S. sponsors; 141,200 Ukrainian refugees sponsored by Americans; 133,000 asylum-seekers who waited for an appointment in Mexico; 77,000 Afghan evacuees; and 22,000 Ukrainians processed at the U.S. southern border, the data show.
Taken together, the immigration parole programs created by the Biden administration amount to the most significant expansion of legal immigration in three decades. And to the dismay of Republican critics, the administration has done so unilaterally, without explicit consent from Congress, which has not expanded legal immigration levels since 1990 amid decades of partisan gridlock.
