Taisha Saintil – tsaintil@haitianbridge.org 
Paola Luisi – pluisi@haitianbridge.org
Dated: 1.6.2023

San Diego, California – Today, the Biden-Harris administration announced a parole program allowing some migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela with U.S.-based sponsors to seek shelter in the United States. President Biden also announced that migrants from the same countries will face immediate expulsion to Mexico under Title 42 if they enter irregularly to the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum. 

Guerline Jozef, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the only Black-led non-governmental organization at the U.S.-Mexico border, said the following: 

“While today’s announcement that the administration is opening more pathways for Haitians, Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans to come to the United States is a step in the right direction, this announcement does not bring closer to restoring our broken immigration system. The right for all – regardless of national origin – to seek asylum should be fully restored. The creation of the parole program should not have come at the expense of barring others from exercising their rights to asylum. We are extremely concerned the administration is returning to some of Trump’s era practice of expelling asylum seekers to Mexico without the opportunity to seek protection and re-introducing an asylum transit ban” said Guerline Jozef, co-founder and Executive Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. “We are also extremely concerned that the new parole program will be inaccessible to the most vulnerable amongst us, particularly those en route to the US border who will be ineligible for this program. We see firsthand the negative consequences and disproportionate impact on Black migrants that the current state of our immigration system brings. We can have a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system that welcomes all with respect and dignity.”