The Biden administration has announced the restart of an immigration program allowing migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to come to the United States. The program, which had been temporarily suspended earlier this month due to fraud concerns, will now include "additional vetting" of the migrants' U.S.-based financial sponsors. The Department of Homeland Security conducted an internal review and found no widespread fraud among sponsors.

According to the agency, the inclusion of these new procedures for supporters aims to strengthen the integrity of the processes and help protect beneficiaries from exploitation. Launched in January 2023, this immigration program is an integral part of the Biden administration's immigration policies, which aim to establish or expand avenues for legal entry while curbing asylum for those who cross the border illegally.

The program primarily targets countries that send a significant number of people to the United States and typically refuse to accept the deportation of their citizens. It is accompanied by agreements with Mexico, who will receive back individuals from these countries if they cross the U.S. border illegally.

Under this program, the U.S. accepts up to 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for a duration of two years. The program also provides eligibility for work authorization. To qualify for participation, migrants must have a U.S.-based financial sponsor who vouches for them and the migrants must fly into an American airport at their own expense rather than crossing the southern border. Both sponsors and migrants undergo a vetting process conducted by the Department of Homeland Security.

However, Republicans have been critical of this program, viewing it as a circumvention of existing immigration laws. They swiftly criticized the Biden administration when the program was suspended, citing it as further validation of their concerns regarding insufficient vetting of migrants. Republican Rep. Mark Green, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, argued that rather than allowing the flawed program to continue, the Department of Homeland Security should cease importing inadmissible aliens every month.

Responding to the concerns, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that the additional vetting will involve a more thorough examination of the financial records and criminal backgrounds of U.S.-based sponsors. Sponsors will be required to submit fingerprints, and the agency will enhance measures to detect fraudulent sponsors and multiple applications filed by the same sponsor.

In its statement, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged discovering some cases of fraud, such as sponsors using fake Social Security numbers. However, the majority of cases investigated had reasonable explanations, such as simple typographical errors made by sponsors during online information submission.

The agency emphasized that the migrants themselves have undergone thorough screening and vetting processes, and no issues were found in that aspect. The exact timing of when the processing of the program was halted was not explicitly mentioned but came to light following a report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group advocating immigration restrictions. Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor FAIR have shared the report yet. According to FAIR, the report indicated that over 100,000 filings were made by 3,218 sponsors, with 24 of the top 1,000 Social Security numbers used corresponding to deceased individuals.

Concerns regarding sponsors seeking quick profit surfaced early on, with Facebook groups like "Sponsors U.S." featuring numerous posts from individuals both offering and seeking financial supporters. Since the program's inception, more than 520,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have arrived in the United States. Notably, the arrests for illegal crossings among these four nationalities have significantly decreased, with Cubans experiencing a decline from over 42,000 arrests in November 2022 to 5,065 arrests in the first half of this year, and Haitians seeing a drop from nearly 18,000 arrests in September 2021 to 304 arrests during the first six months of this year.