US pauses humanitarian entry program for citizens of four countries

By Kristina Cooke and Ted Hesson 

  (Reuters) - The Biden administration said on Friday it had temporarily put on hold a program that allows citizens of four countries to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds while it reviews vetting and screening processes for sponsor applications. 

  The program is part of a Biden administration effort to increase legal pathways to the United States and discourage illegal border crossings but has been criticized by Republicans as overly permissive. 

  The program allows up to 30,000 people into the United States each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela if they have sponsors and meet other conditions. Sponsors must be in the United States legally and have sufficient financial resources to support the person they are sponsoring for the duration of their stay. 

  The Department of Homeland Security said that it paused the issuance of travel authorizations under the program "out of an abundance of caution" while it undertakes a review of supporter applications, a spokesperson said in a statement. 

  A DHS official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said new approvals had been halted since mid-July to strengthen screening and vetting, but that the application portal has remained open. 

  The official said DHS pauses processing "fairly regularly" and expected the approvals to resume in the coming weeks. 

  On Friday, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that favors lower levels of immigration, said it had obtained an internal review that found fraud in the program, including fake Social Security numbers and many applications listing the same address. 

  A second DHS official said the draft report featured cases that merited further review and were not necessarily fraud. 

  DHS said that its screening of U.S.-based supporters is separate from its vetting of program participants and that it has "not identified issues of concern relating to the screening and vetting of beneficiaries." 

  As of June 30, some 495,000 people from those nations had entered the United States under the program, which began for Venezuelans in 2022 and the others in 2023, according to DHS statistics. 

  (Reporting by Kristina Cooke and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)