The measures, introduced last year to offer refuge to people fleeing Ukraine, Haiti and Latin America, offer immigrants the chance to fly to the United States and quickly obtain work authorization, as long as they have a private sponsor who agrees. take care of them.
As of mid-April, some 300,000 Ukrainians had arrived in the United States under various programs, more than all the people from around the world admitted through the official US refugee program in the past five years.
By the end of 2023, about 360,000 Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians are expected to gain admission through a similar privately sponsored initiative introduced in January to stop unauthorized crossings at the southern border — more people than we thought received immigrant visas from these countries in the last 15 years combined.
The Biden administration has also greatly expanded the number of people in the United States with what is known as temporary protected status, a program that former President Donald J. Trump had sought to end. Some 670,000 people from 16 countries have expanded their protections or become eligible since Biden took office, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.
Altogether, these temporary humanitarian programs could become the largest expansion of legal immigration in decades.
“The longer Congress goes without legislating anything on immigration, the more the executive branch will do what it can within its own power based on the president’s principles,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a senior adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
The main challenge, he noted, is that “the courts can come in and say it’s outside the president’s authority, or an abuse of discretion, and take it all away.”
