WASHINGTON, March 22, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The United States said Friday it was 
terminating the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, giving 
them weeks to leave the country.

President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation 
campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American 
nations.

The order affects around 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and 
Venezuelans who came to the United States under a scheme launched in October 
2022 by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden and expanded in January the following 
year.

They will lose their legal protection 30 days after the Department of 
Homeland Security's order is published in the Federal Register, which is 
scheduled Tuesday.

That means immigrants sponsored by the program "must depart the United 
States" by April 24 unless they have secured another immigration status 
allowing them to remain in the country, the order says.

Welcome.US, which supports people seeking refuge in the United States, urged 
those affected by the move to "immediately" seek advice from an immigration 
lawyer.

The Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) 
program, announced in January 2023, allowed entry to the United States for 
two years for up to 30,000 migrants per month from the four countries, which 
have grim human rights records.

Biden touted the plan as a "safe and humane" way to ease pressure on the 
crowded US-Mexico border.

But the Department of Homeland Security stressed Friday that the scheme was 
"temporary."

"Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis 
for obtaining any immigration status, nor does it constitute an admission to 
the United States," it said in the order.

Nicolette Glazer, an immigration lawyer in California, said the order would 
affect the "vast majority" of the half a million immigrants who entered the 
United States under the CHNV scheme.

"Only 75,000 affirmative asylum applications were filed, so the vast majority 
of the CHNV parolees will find themselves without status, work permits, and 
subject to removal," she posted on X.

"The chaos will be unreal".

Trump last weekend invoked rare wartime legislation to fly more than 200 
alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador, which has offered to 
imprison migrants and even US citizens at a discount.

More than seven million Venezuelans have fled their country over the last 
decade as the oil-rich country's economy implodes under leftist leader 
Nicolas Maduro, a bugbear of Washington who has faced major sanctions.