WASHINGTON (Reuters)-President Donald Trump’s government will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguns and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a federal registration warning on Friday, the latest expansion of his repression of immigration.
The measure will come into force on April 24.
The measure interrupts a two-year “conditional guarantee” granted to migrants by former President Joe Biden, which allowed them to enter the country by a air if they had US sponsors.
Trump, a Republican, took steps to increase immigration supervision after taking office, including an effort to deport a record number of immigrants who are illegally in the US. He argued that the conditional guarantee programs for legal entry, launched by their democratic predecessor, surpassed the limits of federal law and requested their closure in a decree of 20 January.
Trump said on March 6 that he would decide “very soon” would withdraw the conditional warranty status of about 240,000 Ukrainians who fled to the US during the conflict with Russia. Trump’s comments came in response to a Reuters report that his government planned to revoke the status of Ukrainians as early as April.
Biden launched an entry program with conditional warranty for Venezuelans in 2022 and expanded it to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguns in 2023, while his government fought with high levels of illegal immigration of these nationalities. Diplomatic and political relations between the four countries and the United States have been tense.
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The new legal paths came up when Biden tried to suppress illegal crossings on the US and Mexico border.
The Trump government’s decision to remove the legal status of half a million migrants can make many of them vulnerable to deportation if they choose to stay in the US. It is still unclear how many who have entered the US with this conditional warranty now have another form of legal protection or status.
