Trump cutoff of humanitarian parole for immigrants from Ukraine

Legal Outlook

A group of American citizens and immigrants is suing the Trump administration for ending a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.

The lawsuit filed late Friday night seeks to reinstate humanitarian parole programs that allowed in 875,000 migrants from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have legal U.S. resident as sponsors.

President Donald Trump has been ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and implementing campaign promises to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally.

The plaintiffs include eight immigrants who entered the U.S. legally before the Trump administration ended what it called the “broad abuse” of humanitarian parole. They can legally stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, but the administration stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer.

None are identified by their real names because they fear deportation. Among them are Maksym and Maria Doe, a Ukrainian couple; Alejandro Doe, who fled Nicaragua following the abduction and torture of his father; and Omar Doe, who worked for more than 18 years with the U.S. military in his home country of Afghanistan.

“They didn’t do anything illegal. They followed the rules,” Kyle Varner, a 40-year-old doctor and real estate investor from Spokane, Washington, who sponsored 79 Venezuelans and is part of the lawsuit, told The Associated Press. “They have done nothing but work as hard as they can. ... This is just such a grave injustice.”

Almost all of the immigrants sponsored by Varner have lived in his house for some time. He paid their plane tickets. He helped them learn English and get driver’s licenses and jobs. He had 32 applications that were awaiting approval when the Trump administration ended the program in January.

Other plaintiffs include two more U.S. citizens who have sponsored immigrants, Sandra McAnany and Wilhen Pierre Victor, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a California-based organization that assists immigrants with legal advice.

“The Trump administration is trying to attack parole from all angles,” said Esther Sung, an attorney from the Justice Action Center, which filed the lawsuit with Human Rights First in federal court in Massachusetts and provided the AP a copy in advance. “The main goal, above all, is to defend humanitarian parole. These have been very, very successful processes.”

The U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Parole authority began in 1952 and has been used by Republican and Democratic presidents to admit people unable to use standard immigration routes because of time pressure or because their home country’s government lacks diplomatic relations with the U.S.

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