Bad Temporary News For Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans

SUSPENSION OF THE HUMANITARIAN PAROL PROGRAM FOR FOUR COUNTRIES.

Last week the U.S. government announced the temporary suspension of the permits that allowed citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua to travel and stay in this country for two years.  According to the Department of Homeland Security, too much fraud and abuse was found in this process; therefore, it decided to suspend it in order to evaluate it before continuing it.  The program consists of offering immigration relief to persons from the aforementioned countries as long as they have a sponsor with legal status in the United States.  The program admits approximately 30,000 people per year and so far many, especially from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua have benefited from it.  The government has not said exactly what the fraud consists of, however, it is speculated that it has to do with the sponsors who have to comply with certain requirements, which are not difficult.   The official figure indicates that more than 400,000 people from the countries mentioned above have benefited from the program.   Obviously people who are in the middle of the process have been worried because they do not know how and when the government will put it back into effect.  We must stay informed because unfortunately the people who were in the process will not be able to do anything about it until we get the green light again. 

The purpose of this program is so that people do not suffer trying to enter the country irregularly, for example Venezuelans going through the danger of the jungle and Cubans from the sea.

I believe that the suspension of this program will have negative consequences, one of them being that the southern border will be saturated again with people trying to enter the country and therefore causing problems in different ways.   Probably in any kind of program fraud can be done, in my experience I did not find irregularities in the documents of the cases that our firm prepared and the sponsors complied with the requirements.

Democratic candidate for Vice President of the United States has a history of being pro-immigrant.

This Tuesday, presidential candidate Kamala Harris confirmed Tim Walz as her running mate for the November 5th presidential election in this country.  Tim Walz is currently the governor of the state of Minnesota, he was also a congressman for more than 15 years.  During his career Walz has always had a pro-immigrant policy and Minnesota has been one of the states that has welcomed immigrants both Latinos, including a high number of Mexicans, Central Americans and Africans, the latter especially from Somalia and Ethiopia.  Walz has expressed an open policy in terms of civil rights and has employed a considerable number of immigrants and minorities in his office.  He is also a veteran of the National Guard, where he served for many years and a former high school teacher during which time his own children state he stood out in that role for being an outspoken person, he also has a record of being pro-labor, advocating for programs for working people including minimum wage, unions and other programs that support the middle class.  I think he will be a strong candidate who also has a good sense of humor, is very intelligent and charismatic.  Hopefully candidates Harris and Walz will be able to move forward with their campaign especially pushing a pro-immigrant policy.