Trump stripped 530 000 Latin American migrants of legal status in the US

The US President Donald Trump has stripped 530 000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans of their legal status, which allowed them to legally reside in the United States.

Reuters reports this.

On Friday, March 21, the Department of Homeland Security said the migrant program had not met its goals. It is unclear how many of those migrants were able to obtain another status that would allow them to remain in the United States legally.

The US administrationʼs executive order will take effect on March 24 and will affect the CHNV program, which was introduced by former US President Joe Biden in 2022 for Venezuelan citizens. The program was later expanded to include Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans due to the increase in illegal migration from Latin American countries that his administration had faced.

Its goal was to streamline the migration process from these countries, reduce illegal immigration across the border, and make entry into the United States safer and more controlled. The CHNV program allowed citizens of Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua to legally reside in the United States for a period of time, usually up to two years.

Trumpʼs immigration policy

On the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the issuance of American citizenship documents to children born in the United States to parents who are either illegally in the United States or in situations where the mother is temporarily in the United States, for example, on a visa, and the father is not a citizen.

And the next day, he signed an executive order closing the countryʼs southern border, that is, with Mexico, to "illegal immigrants" and ordered the deportation of those who entered the United States illegally from Mexico.

The United States subsequently suspended a number of programs that allowed immigrants to temporarily settle in the country. In particular, the Uniting for Ukraine program, which allowed Ukrainians to enter. The decision will block the entry of immigrants fleeing some of the most unstable and dangerous places in the world. In addition to Ukraine, the programs offered temporary protection to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela.

• Reuters, citing a senior Trump administration official and three other sources familiar with the matter, reported on March 6 that the Trump administration plans to revoke the temporary legal status of about 240 000 Ukrainians. The decision could be made as early as April. At the same time, the report also noted that this possibility could be extended to more than 500 000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in March.
• The White House called it a “fake” that Trump might revoke temporary legal status for thousands of Ukrainians. Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said it was “another fake news story from Reuters” — no decision had been made. On the same day, March 6, Trump said he would make a decision on the issue “very soon”.

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