The Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, traveled to Miami this Monday to explain and defend the new immigration plan of parole humanitarian aid for Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans.
“This is the model that we have built and will continue to build,” he said. “So that our principle of humanitarian aid is achievable in a safe and orderly way, so that people do not have to risk their lives in the hands of those who only seek to exploit them for profit. They don’t need to do that and they can safely come to the United States,” the secretary said at a press conference after meetings with the Cuban and Haitian communities at the Ermita de la Caridad and at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, respectively.
The new program, which began earlier this month, grants parole humanitarian assistance to 30,000 people per month of these four nationalities who find a sponsor, be they a citizen or a resident, and who is therefore responsible for their expenses during the two-year stay established.
Mayorkas expressed concern that both Cubans and Haitians continue to risk their lives on dangerous sea voyages, despite countless warnings from the administration not to do so.
More than 4,700 Cubans have been authorized to enter the US through a new parole program
“We have seen too many tragedies […]. We have seen loss of life,” Mayorkas said. “We have seen loved ones lose children and family members. It’s not for people to go to sea.”
“We built legal pathways for people to come to the United States and seek relief,” Mayorkas said. “At the same time, those who do not take those legal paths will not be able to remain in the United States.”
So far, he said, the program has worked. That is why she said she does not understand how those red states, including Florida, have filed a lawsuit in Texas to try to reverse it.
“I find it remarkable that these states are attacking a solution to the problem they are complaining about,” he stressed.
Mayorkas said it was “incomprehensible” that the lawsuit was filed because the program “addresses the challenge that we have been facing on our southern border.” And he cited preliminary data that the Department of Homeland Security released last week, according to which there was a 97% decrease in the arrival of Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans at that border compared to December.
Deportation flights to Cuba
On the other hand, despite the announcement in November that Cuba had agreed to begin receiving its deportable citizens from the United States, deportation flights have not yet restarted, Mayorkas said.
The Secretary of National Security declared that they were part of the immigration agreements with Cuba, in which the administration works. But he did not explain why they did not resume.
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“What we are implementing are the immigration agreements,” he said. “We are building the capacity of our consular offices in Havana to reissue visas for people to arrive safely in the United States, yet another mechanism for people to arrive safely and orderly in the United States. In the same way, we are rebuilding the Program of parole for Cuban Family Reunification. One of the elements of the immigration agreements is to resume removal flights, which we have not done yet.
