On April 14, 2025, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order staying the notice published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that would have terminated, as of April 24, 2025, the humanitarian parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that gave sponsored individuals the ability to live and work in the United States for up to two years.
What humanitarian parole program had been terminated?
As McGuireWoods covered in a previous alert, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice in the Federal Register terminating the humanitarian parole processes for noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (the CHNV program). Pursuant to the notice, the CHNV program would have terminated on April 24, 2025, ending parole for individuals who entered the United Stated under the program if their parole had not ended sooner. While employment authorization would not have automatically expired at the time the parole terminated, DHS stated that it would utilize the procedures in 8 C.F.R. § 274a.14(b) to revoke parole-based work authorization granted by the CHNV program.
Since the publication of that notice, individuals began receiving separate, individual notices of revocation of work authorization through the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service online portal.
On April 14, 2025, in a case filed by a group of participants in the CHNV program in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Judge Talwani ruled on the plaintiffs’ request for emergency relief, staying both the Federal Register notice and the individualized notices.
What does the court’s order do?
The court granted the plaintiff’s request for preliminary injunction, finding that the secretary of DHS does not have authority under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) to “categorically truncate these grants of parole en masse and without individual review.” Because grants of parole were made on a case-by-case basis, the court reasoned that the secretary “must attend, in some way, to the reasons an individual alien received parole” in terminating that individual’s status. The court also rejected the argument that it did not have authority to review the Federal Register notice.
Ruling on behalf of the plaintiffs, pending further order, the court temporarily:
- stayed the Federal Register notice “insofar as it revoked, the previously granted parole and work authorization issued to noncitizens paroled into the United States pursuant to parole programs for noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela … prior to the noncitizen’s originally stated parole end date”; and
- stayed all individualized notices sent to noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela via their USCIS online account notifying them that their parole (and work authorization) is revoked without case-by-case review.
The court found this emergency relief warranted because the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the early termination of parole was arbitrary and capricious. Terminating parole in less than two weeks also would cause individuals irreparable harm, as they would be required to follow the law and leave the country on their own, subjecting them to dangers in their native countries and forcing them to forfeit their APA claims or await removal proceedings, putting them at risk of arrest and detention and undermining chances of receiving other forms of immigration relief in the future.
What does this mean for employers?
Employers may continue to employ individuals who are lawfully in the United States through the CHNV program through the expiration of their current Employment Authorization Document (EAD). This includes anyone who received an individualized notice of revocation through their USCIS portal, as those individual revocations of status and work authorization are stayed.
Employers should take steps to reverify the individual’s work authorization no later than the expiration date listed on the EAD pursuant to USCIS guidance, as they would in the normal course of business.
What happens next?
The government has indicated an intent to appeal Judge Talwani’s order. Should the government not appeal, or if the appeal is denied, the case will continue through litigation where the court will decide the underlying claims. Practically, as there is no re-parole available through the CHNV program, as previously announced by the Biden administration, individuals who entered the United States pursuant to the CHNV program would need to be granted another immigration benefit in order to lawfully remain in the United States past the expiration of their authorized period of parole.
