1.5 million apply for U.S. migrant sponsorship program with 30,000 monthly cap

Washington — In just a few months, the U.S. received more than 1.5 million requests from individuals hoping to sponsor the entry of migrants from four countries, an extraordinary number that could jeopardize the Biden administration's objective of reducing border crossings, internal documents obtained by CBS News show. The flurry of hundreds of thousands of sponsorship applications on behalf of would-be migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela has overwhelmed caseworkers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which can approve no more than 30,000 arrivals under the program each month. American citizens, residents and others in the U.S. with a legal immigration status are eligible to sponsor migrants from these four countries, as long as they agree to financially support them. Migrants who arrive under the program are granted two-year work permits under the humanitarian parole authority. Due to the massive and rapidly mounting backlog of unresolved applications, USCIS recently altered the way it processes these cases, selecting half of the requests it reviews each month through a lottery system. The other half will continue to be adjudicated on a first come, first serve basis. The internal Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by CBS News indicated that as of the end of last month, the agency was receiving an average of nearly 12,000 applications per day from those seeking to sponsor Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, calling the number "overwhelming." The documents noted that less than three days' worth of applications were processed per month due to the 30,000 monthly cap. More than 100,000 migrants have arrived in the U.S. under the sponsorship initiative. But the government was overseeing more than 580,000 pending cases for Haitians, more than 380,000 for Cubans, nearly 120,000 for Venezuelans and more than 20,000 for Nicaraguans at the end of April. Other cases were being reviewed or had been approved. A version of the program was first launched in October 2022 to allow Venezuelans with U.S.-based sponsors to fly to the U.S. directly, as part of an effort to reduce what at the time were record arrivals of Venezuelan migrants along the southern border. In January, the initiative was expanded to include Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, who also journeyed to the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers last year. Asylum seekers are seen scaling a hill between the US-Mexico SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - 2023/05/12: Asylum seekers are seen scaling a hill between the US-Mexico border to reach the Mexican military who was providing aid alongside the US volunteers JON PUTMAN/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES The sponsor program has been paired with a policy of returning Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who cross the southern border illegally to Mexico, which agreed to take back these nationalities, first under the now-expired Title 42 public health order and now under regular U.S. immigration law. The combination of returns to Mexico with the sponsorship program has led to a sharp drop in illegal border crossings by migrants from these four crisis-stricken countries, whose governments won't or can't accept large numbers of U.S. deportations due to diplomatic or operational reasons. Top White House officials have boasted about the strategy's success. But the soaring number of applications for the sponsorship program, far above its 30,000 monthly cap, threatens to derail the policy's main objective: encouraging would-be migrants to refrain from crossing the southern border illegally by offering them a meaningful chance to enter the U.S. legally. The internal DHS documents say the hundreds of thousands of pending cases have caused "significant" wait times for applicants. If the monthly cap is not raised, the documents acknowledged, the program's effectiveness could diminish. "The migrants who are desperate, and they're desperate migrants, will wait only so long before they say 'it's not happening and I'll take my chances getting something else,' whether that's entering clandestinely or just show up at the border and see if they can be let in," said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former DHS official and current immigration analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank. Top U.S. officials have not indicated that they will raise the 30,000 monthly cap on admissions. Representatives for DHS did not say whether they were considering increasing the number of monthly arrivals. "This Administration has led the largest expansion of legal pathways in decades, and the parole processes for individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela is just one of those many pathways now available to individuals seeking to enter the United States lawfully," DHS said Monday in a statement to CBS News. The department noted it had recently decided to use a random selection process to allocate half of the approximately 1,000 travel authorizations issued each day under the program, in order to "ensure that all individuals who apply have optimism that they will be able to travel to the United States soon." "Now in their fifth month, the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have continued to successfully reduce irregular migration and we expect that to continue, but challenges remain, including current court cases trying to block these successful measures," DHS added in its statement. Asylum seekers are loaded into vans to be officially SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - 2023/05/12: Asylum seekers are loaded into vans to be officially processed into the United States system. JON PUTMAN/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES In April 2022, the Biden administration launched its first version of the sponsorship policy, setting up a program dubbed Uniting for Ukraine to allow Americans to sponsor Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion of their homeland. Unlike the subsequent sponsor program, Uniting for Ukraine has no numerical cap. As of earlier in May, 127,000 Ukrainians had come to the U.S. under the policy. Changing the cap for the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan sponsorship initiative could have legal and foreign affairs implications. The Biden administration and the Mexican government have tied the arrival of up to 30,000 migrants in the U.S. to Mexico's commitment to accept the return of the same number of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans turned away by American border officials. "Thirty thousand for 30,000 is something that has proven to work, and we've committed — both countries — to continue with that arrangement of 30,000 to 30,000 after May 11," a senior U.S. official told reporters earlier this month. The sponsorship policy is also being challenged in federal court by a coalition of Republican-led states that argue the Biden administration does not have the legal authority to use parole to admit up to 360,000 migrants each year outside of the regular visa system. Blas Nuñez Neto, the top DHS official for border and immigration policy, said last week that Mexico was "unlikely" to continue accepting returns of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans if the sponsorship program was blocked in court. Daily unlawful border crossings soared to a record high 10,000 earlier this month, just prior to the termination of the Title 42 public health restrictions on migration, but have since plummeted to 3,000 in recent days. Biden officials have attributed the sharp drop in border crossings to increased formal deportations of those who enter the U.S. illegally and a restriction that disqualifies many migrants from asylum, as well as efforts by Mexican and Guatemalan military and law enforcement officials to slow U.S.-bound migration. FACE THE NATION Mayor Eric Adams on migrant crisis: NYC carrying "burden" of "national problem" BY CAITLIN YILEK MAY 21, 2023 / 2:13 PM / CBS NEWS New York City Mayor Eric Adams believes his city is unfairly carrying the weight of caring for asylum seekers who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that the responsibility should fall on more cities throughout the U.S. "When you look at the price tag, $30 million comes nowhere near what the city is paying for a national problem," he told "Face the Nation" on Sunday, referring to federal aid New York City is receiving for costs associated with shelters, food and health care for migrants. The city had asked for $350 million in federal aid. "We've spent over a billion dollars," he added. "We're projected to spend close to $4.3 billion, if not more." Transcript: New York City Mayor Eric Adams on "Face the Nation" More than 70,000 migrants have come to New York City in recent months and 42,000 are still in city care, Adams said. Adams, a Democrat, made his first trip to the border as mayor in January, months after he issued an emergency declaration over migrant arrivals in New York. He said then that cities were being "undermined" by having to shoulder the costs of caring for migrants and called on federal leaders to find solutions to the issue. 1684680816045.png New York City Mayor Eric Adams on "Face the Nation," May 21, 2023. CBS NEWS Adams announced earlier this month he would send migrants to upstate New York to house them in hotels, which was met with pushback from area officials. "We believe the entire state should participate in a decompression strategy," he said Sunday. "It's unfortunate that there have been some lawmakers and counties that are not carrying on their role of assuring that this is a decompression strategy throughout the state." Adams said it would be helpful if the federal government stepped up in directing where migrants are moved throughout the U.S. "We have 108,000 cities, villages, towns," Adams said. "If everyone takes a small portion of that and if it's coordinated at the border to ensure that those who are coming here to this country in a lawful manner is actually moved throughout the entire country, it is not a burden on one city." A new CBS News poll found Americans who are receptive to the idea of temporarily accepting migrants into their cities depends on their politics and where they live. About 52% of Americans favored housing migrants in their cities, but only 37% thought their city had the facilities to be able to do so. Democrats were more willing to accept migrants, while Republicans were mostly opposed. U.S. Migrant mother requested aid three times the day her 8-year-old daughter died in U.S. border custody BY CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ UPDATED ON: MAY 22, 2023 / 7:30 PM / CBS NEWS Washington — The mother of a young migrant girl who died in U.S. Border Patrol custody last week requested medical aid at least three times the day her sick daughter was pronounced dead at a Texas hospital, government officials said Sunday. Eight-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, who was born with a heart condition, died on May 17 after experiencing a medical emergency inside a Border Patrol station in Harlingen, Texas. A local medical examiner is still probing the death, but an initial autopsy referenced Reyes Alvarez's heart disease and sickle cell anemia, officials said. Reyes Alvarez was detained in Border Patrol facilities with her parents and siblings for over a week, despite internal rules that instruct agents to hold migrants for no longer than three days. Border Patrol agents can release migrants pending a court hearing or an asylum interview, deport them or transfer them to another agency, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In an updated statement Sunday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Patrol's parent agency, said agents first processed Reyes Alvarez and her family on May 9. The family remained in the agency's custody for eight days. It's unclear why Reyes Alvarez and her family remained in Border Patrol custody beyond the 72-hour limit. But earlier this month, the agency struggled to house thousands of migrants stuck in detention facilities after border arrivals soared to 10,000 per day shortly before the expiration of the Title 42 pandemic-era restrictions on migration. Unlawful crossings along the southern border have since plummeted. Representatives for CBP did not answer several questions about how the family was processed, including the reason for their prolonged detention. CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility, which issued Sunday's statement, is investigating the girl's death. In a separate statement Sunday, acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said the results of the internal probe into Reyes Alvarez's death would be made public. Miller also announced he had ordered officials to ensure that medically vulnerable migrants were spending only a "limited" time in Border Patrol facilities and that medical contractors were providing "appropriate care" to those in custody. "The health and safety of individuals in our custody, our workforce, and communities we serve is paramount," Miller said. "To that end, we must ensure that medically fragile individuals receive the best possible care and spend the minimum amount of time possible in CBP custody." While the Office of Professional Responsibility's statement left many questions unanswered, it provided the first official timeline of what led up to Reyes Alvarez's death. According to the statement, Reyes Alvarez, her family and dozens of other migrants were apprehended by Border Patrol agents near Brownsville, Texas, on the night of May 9. The family was initially taken to an outdoors processing area, where they spent the night before being transported to a tent holding facility in Donna, Texas, the following day, officials said. US-LATAM-MEXICO-POLITICS-MIGRATION-TITLE42 Migrants look over a fence as they try to locate family members and friends that arrived at a processing center in Brownsville, Texas, on May 11, 2023. The US on May 11, 2023, will officially end its 40-month Covid-19 emergency, also discarding the Title 42 law, a tool that has been used to prevent millions of migrants from entering the country. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Reyes Alvarez, officials added, was medically screened at the Donna facility and "did not complain of any acute illnesses or injuries." The parents did tell officials about the girl's heart condition and sickle cell anemia, the statement said. According to the CBP statement, Reyes Alvarez started complaining about "abdominal pain, nasal congestion, and cough" as early as the afternoon of May 14. After recording a temperature of 101.8 and testing positive for influenza A, Reyes Alvarez was provided several medications, including Tamiflu, officials said. Medical contractors also learned Reyes Alvarez had undergone heart surgery when she was five, the statement said. CBP said Reyes Alvarez and her family were relocated to the Border Patrol station in Harlingen, which it noted houses migrants "diagnosed with or closely exposed to communicable diseases." After arriving there on the night of May 12, Reyes Alvarez was again medically screened, officials said. During the following three days, CBP said, Reyes Alvarez received Tamiflu and ibuprofen. According to CBP, the situation deteriorated on May 17. "At this time, CBP can confirm that medical records documented that the eight-year-old girl and her mother came to the (Harlingen station) medical unit at least three times on Wednesday, May 17, 2023," the agency said. Reyes Alvarez was given Zofran — a medication used to prevent nausea and vomiting — and "instructed to hydrate and return if needed" after her first visit, during which she reported vomiting, officials said. Reyes Alvarez then complained of a stomach ache, but medical contractors instructed the mother to follow up again, saying the girl was "stable." At 1:55 p.m., Reyes Alvarez's mother came back carrying the child, who CBP said "appeared to be having a seizure" and was later unresponsive. Medical contractors called an ambulance and administered CPR, officials added. The ambulance arrived at 2:07 PM and transported Reyes Alvarez and her mother to the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen. Fewer than 50 minutes later, Reyes Alvarez was pronounced dead at the hospital. "Initial findings from the autopsy, which were shared with CBP OPR, indicated an absence of gross physical trauma, the presence of pleural effusions within the chest cavity, mentioned evidence that had been observed of the attempted surgical repair of the girl's aortic stenosis, and also referenced the provided history of sickle cell anemia," CBP said. Reyes Alvarez's mother told The Associated Press that officials at the Border Patrol facilities ignored earlier calls to hospitalize her daughter. "They killed my daughter, because she was nearly a day and a half without being able to breathe," the mother said, according to AP. "She cried and begged for her life and they ignored her. They didn't do anything for her." In addition to Reyes Alvarez and her family's week-long detention appearing to violate CBP's detention policy, it is also unclear whether the processing of the family complies with a 2022 legal agreement the government forged with lawyers representing migrant children in a landmark court settlement known as the Flores Agreement, which provides basic rights to minors in U.S. immigration custody. The 2022 agreement requires Border Patrol agents in El Paso and south Texas to conduct "enhanced medical monitoring" of migrant children if they are held beyond 72 hours. This includes constant medical checks, at least every 4 hours. "Between this settlement, and their own internal policies which acknowledge that 72 hours should be the maximum time in custody, it is extraordinarily difficult to understand how this tragedy occurred. Ultimately, Anadith's death is a reflection of our dehumanizing and dangerous immigration system," said Neha Desai, the senior director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law, which represents children in Flores cases. While Reyes Alvarez was born in Panama, her parents and siblings are from Honduras. The family has since been released from U.S. custody pending the adjudication of their immigration cases. Honduran government officials and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have all demanded a "thorough" investigation into Reyes Alvarez's death. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.