The federal programs that paved the way for Springfield Haitian influx

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Oct. 2—America's federal immigration policy has come under scrutiny for its role allowing 15,000 immigrants to flee Haiti and wind up in Springfield, where they have been thrust front-and-center of a contentious federal election campaign.

There are several legal pathways Haitian immigrants can use to enter the U.S., and those programs were expanded and streamlined in recent years.

Attention is often focused on the longstanding program of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as the primary program that has authorized Springfield's Haitians to come to America. This simplification leaves out a large part of the equation, given that immigrants must be legally authorized to be within American borders in order to receive TPS.

Through interviews with local immigration lawyers, this news outlet has found that the vast majority of Springfield's Haitians were authorized to come to America via a slate of humanitarian parole programs, including Humanitarian Parole, Family Reunification Parole (FRP) and the Cuban Haitian Nicaraguan Venezuelan Parole (CHNV), to varying extents.

Katie Kersh, an immigration attorney with pro-bono legal firm Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE), said about half of the more than 400 Haitian immigrants in Springfield her agency has assisted are authorized to live in here through parole programs while half are on TPS.

The most common parole program Kersh sees is Humanitarian Parole, which is the most basic form of parole established by Congress and vested to the executive branch in the early 1950s. Over the decades, that same legal authority has been used to create a wealth of specific, narrower parole programs, such as FRP and the CHNV.

The prevalence of Humanitarian Parole in Springfield's Haitians has also been evident for Dayton-based immigration attorney Mohamed Al-Hamdani, who estimated that 60% of his overall clientele the past year and a half have been Haitian immigrants who settled in Springfield.

Most of those immigrants, Al-Hamdani told this news outlet, legally entered the U.S. through the southern border and were granted Humanitarian Parole.

Given that these programs all stem from the same legal authority, they have many commonalities. For example, they do not provide a direct path to citizenship; nor do they direct the parolees on where to go once they're authorized to live in the U.S.; nor do they have funds attached to them to benefit immigrants or to assist the communities they end up settling in.

Each requires that immigrants enter the U.S. through legal ports of entry; each requires that immigrants be vetted and processed by federal agents; and each has generally authorized Springfield Haitians to live in the U.S. for up to two years, apply for work permits, and try for various other forms of immigration status, including asylum and TPS.

Parole programs

All of the United States' parole programs stem from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which originally established the federal government's authority to grant certain foreigners parole "on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit."

"That's a statute that Congress enacted and has maintained in place in federal immigration law for literally decades," said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an immigration professor at the Ohio State University's College of Law, in an interview with this news outlet.

In the time since, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have wielded the power as humanitarian and immigration tools. In myriad instances, administrations have used the power to create subset programs with narrower eligibility requirements in response to some global humanitarian crisis, such as 2022′s "Uniting for Ukraine" parole program following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Parole has always been a flexible legal option for federal immigration officials to use in light of whatever new development is happening in some corner of the world that brings people to the United States," García Hernández said.

Humanitarian Parole

Today, Humanitarian Parole can be thought of more-or-less as the default parole.

Citizens of any foreign government can apply. On a case-by-case basis, Humanitarian Parole is granted for either "significant public benefit," which often involves situations where the parolee could play a helpful role in a court case, or for "urgent humanitarian reasons," in which immigration agents take into consideration the well-being of the prospective parolee and the "degree of suffering that may result if parole is not authorized."

According to Kersh, Humanitarian Parole has been "by far" the most common parole granted to the Springfield Haitians she's worked with, many of whom were steered through a relatively new and more efficient application process that involves using an app to schedule an appointment at select legal crossings at the southern border.

The app, called CBP One, was created at the tail end of the Trump Administration and has been largely administered by Biden's Department of Homeland Security. It's meant to make it easier for border agents to vet and process hopeful immigrants stuck at the southern border. Today, eight crossings in Arizona, California and Texas process CBP One appointments.

It was hoped that the modernized process would disincentivize illegal crossings while also more efficiently easing humanitarian concerns at a border that has become host to large numbers of migrants from an array of countries. This includes Haiti, which has been ravaged by organized gangs since its president was assassinated in 2021.

Kersh said some of the Springfield Haitians who received Humanitarian Parole flew from Haiti to Mexico, while others took a longer migration route through various Central American countries. Some tried living in South America, but were met with racism and "sometimes even violence because they're Black and because they're Haitian," she relayed. "They just didn't feel safe in those countries."

Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says it has received an "unprecedented number of parole requests" since Fall 2021, a year after CBP One was launched. An alert plastered on its Humanitarian Parole webpage warns applicants to expect significant processing delays.

Family Reunification Parole

Haitian beneficiaries of the Biden Administration's efforts to streamline the Family Reunification Parole process have also popped up in Springfield, though the number is considerably lower than those who received Humanitarian Parole, Kersh said.

As García Hernández explained, "family Reunification is basically an attempt to take folks who are already in the United States lawfully one way or another and create a legal pathway into the United States for their close relatives who are still abroad."

The program is invite-only. U.S. Citizens or lawful permanent residents (green card holders) can submit a form to the government stating they'd like to bring their immediate family over from a country, and, upon review, the government can invite the foreign family members to apply for reunification.

The America-based family member must be able to financially support those they intend to bring over, and each beneficiary "must receive a medical examination and clearance to travel by a panel physician, undergo and pass national security and public safety vetting, and demonstrate that they otherwise merit a favorable exercise of discretion by DHS," according to USCIS.

The program was originally created in 2007 solely for Cuban nationals, but was extended to Haitians in 2014. The Trump Administration attempted to remove Haiti from the program but was blocked by federal courts in 2019. In 2023, the Biden Administration extended the program to nationals from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Modernization efforts from the Biden Administration have allowed all FRP applicants to complete most of the process online through the CBP One app, according to García Hernández. Additionally, the administration eliminated the requirement for Cuban and Haitian FRP applicants to complete in-person interviews with immigration officials. The administration argued that the cumulative changes to the program eliminate the "burden of travel, time and paperwork" while "increasing access to participation."

CHNV Parole

The most infrequent parole pathway for Springfield's Haitians according to local immigration attorneys is the CHNV parole program, which was created by the Biden administration originally without Haitians in mind before adding Haitians to the list in early 2023.

The program is meant to reduce the bottleneck of immigrants at the southern border by allowing certain vetted and qualified foreigners to enter America through other ports of entry, such as airports.

In order to qualify, citizens of these countries must pass a DHS safety screening and have a U.S. based "supporter" who can invite them into the country and agree to financially support them. Qualifying migrants can bring a spouse and their unmarried children under age 21.

The Biden Administration told this news outlet that over 520,000 immigrants had been granted parole through the CHNV program in just under two years, though there's no estimate on how many of those parolees are Haitian.

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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.

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