Expanding Humanitarian Parole

In January of 2023, the Biden Administration formally announced its new approach to border enforcement and immigration policy. Facing the inevitable end of Title 42, the White House issued both a carrot and a stick: the expansion of legal pathways to enter the United States at its southern border, accompanied by harsher consequences for individuals attempting to enter the country unlawfully. Those deemed ‘illegal’ will be met with their expedited removal and a five-year ban on reentry. But what about those in need of urgent humanitarian relief who have a family member living in the United States? Under the Administration’s new guidelines, migrants may have to rely on Humanitarian Parole, a program which offers temporary safety to those in need. The expansion of Humanitarian Parole by the Biden Administration is a step in the right direction, though it must continue to expand to further protect the rights of migrants. Expanding the program to allow automatic work authorization and increasing the number of parolees permitted to stay in the United States would be two excellent initiatives to ensure migrants are protected in the face of unprecedented global crises.

Humanitarian Parole is granted by the United States government on a case-by-case basis. Parole is granted to individuals who are either in need of significant humanitarian assistance or possess the potential to contribute significantly to the benefit of the general American public. Parolees must have a sponsor already in the United States and, in cases  inconsistent with an extended period of granted parole, work permits are given to parolees to sustain themselves throughout their parole. On 5 January 2023, the Biden administration announced its expansion of the United States’ humanitarian parole program to now include Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans. According to the White House’s Press Release, up to 30,000 individuals with eligible sponsors will be admitted to the United State per month. The administration additionally announced that it would triple the amount of refugees resettled in the United States from the Western Hemisphere, welcoming up to 20,000 refugees during Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024.

While these expansions by the Biden Administration are a step in the right direction, the Biden administration (or his potential successor in 2024) should expand Humanitarian Parole to both include more parolees and grant automatic work authorization. As Nowrasteh et al. highlight, enabling migrants to exercise their right to work is not a novel idea: the Uniting for Ukraine parole program permits work authorization to every successful parolee automatically. Additionally, it is well-documented that migrant workers from developing countries are often exploited due to their undocumented status, resulting in long hours, low wages, and unsafe working conditions. Expanding Humanitarian Parole to include work authorization automatically could protect parolees and tip the scales of equality in favor of migrants, eliminating the unlivable, under the table wages offered by unethical employers.

In the face of the increasingly inhospitable climate in Central and Southern America, Humanitarian Parole also has the potential to play a key role in the future of American (and international) immigration policy. Traditionally, climate refugees have been denied protection by national and international governments. For example, in 2015, a Kiribati international named Ioane Teitiota petitioned the tribunals and lower courts of New Zealand to remain in the country as a refugee, citing the economic and environmental degradation of his home country as his reason for remaining. Climate change, violence, and political unrest had made the island inhospitable, and Ioane feared that he and his family would not survive if they returned. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of New Zealand upheld the lower courts’ decision to deport Ioane and his family. The UN Human Rights Committee supported the decision as the Teitiota family would not face persecution on their return to Kiribati, but it did make note of climate change’s increasing influence in determining the right to life for vulnerable populations.

Humanitarian Parole could offer a loophole of sorts to the most vulnerable families facing environmental degradation. Access to temporary protection and the ability to exercise the right to work would offer thousands of vulnerable families the chance to sustain themselves in the aftermath of a serious environmental collapse, such the double disaster of Hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020 which displaced over 1.5 million people across Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. The United States should not prepare itself to approve over a million parolees, but it should consider keeping the monthly number of permitted parolees at 30,000, or higher so that it can continue to support the most vulnerable and climate-affected populations in the western hemisphere. With some climate scientists predicting that the worst consequences of climate change and rising sea-levels are yet to come, it is vital for both the United States and future victims of environmental degradation that national and international governments are prepared for future climate disasters.

Humanitarian Parole as it stands is not a long-term solution to the United States’ immigration troubles. With an average parole period of only one year, the program is working for parolees as it was intended: offering legal protection in the short-term. But by expanding its jurisdiction to allow the automatic approval of work permits to parolees and adopting a longer, strategic approach to migration, the United States may be able to protect thousands, if not millions of migrants in the coming decades.