SAN DIEGO, CA – The San Diego, California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has “unequivocally” condemned US President Donald Trump’ decision to terminate the legal status of more than 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants admitted under the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program, popularly known as the CHNV program .
Guerline JozefThe US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday said it will officially end the program on April 24, giving the migrants about a month before they face deportation.
“This is not policy—it is premeditated cruelty, rooted in white supremacy, anti-Blackness and xenophobia,” Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Saturday.
She noted that the CHNV program, initiated in 2023, was designed “to offer temporary safe haven to migrants fleeing authoritarian regimes, economic collapse, and political violence—conditions often worsened by US interventionism and neoliberal policies.”
As of February 2025, Jozef said over 500, 000 nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were approved under this legal pathway.
“The revocation of their status is not only a direct assault on immigrant families but a clear signal that the Trump administration is doubling down on authoritarianism and ethnic cleansing,” she said, stating that, during his campaign, Trump referred to these migrants as “’poisoning the blood of our country’—language that echoes 20th-century fascist regimes.
“Let’s be clear: this is a war on poor, Black and Brown people who dared to seek safety,” Jozef added. “These families have followed the rules. Now, they are being told they’re no longer welcome because Trump wants to rally his base with racist fear-mongering.
“We remind the public that the CHNV program has been life-saving,” she continued. “Nearly all of its beneficiaries were vetted, sponsored and admitted legally.”
Jozef said terminating this program is “not just an immigration rollback—it’s an orchestrated effort to unleash ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency), tear apart families, and criminalize the very existence of people of color on US soil, consistent with the agency of Project 2025 (the Conservative policy agenda).”
Josef, therefore, called on Democrats and Republicans to “publicly denounce this move, defend the CHNV program, and take legislative action to protect those at risk.
“Silence is complicity,” she declared.
Trump’s order applies to about 532,000 nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua who migrated to the US since October 2022.
DHS Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Friday that these immigrants will lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the order is published in the Federal Register.
