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Daily Caller

‘Clearly Flawed’: Immigration Hawks Decry Biden-Harris Admin’s Decision To Quickly Resume Mass Parole Program

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

 

The Biden-Harris administration has decided to resume a mass parole program that was sidelined due to the discovery of widespread fraud, but immigration hardliners say the vetting process remains critically flawed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is resuming an immigration program that allows foreign nationals to apply for asylum in their home countries and fly into the U.S. at various airports upon approval, known as the CHNV program, which has allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela into the country, a spokesman confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday. However, border hawks are cautioning that the program has not sufficiently updated its vetting procedures since it was placed on pause last month after the discovery of rampant fraud.

“My Committee has engaged with the department since this pause was announced, and the results were sobering,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green said in a Thursday statement following news of the program’s restart. “Instead of scrapping the clearly flawed program, the department is allowing it to continue without rooting out the fraud or putting adequate safeguards in place to prevent exploitation by sponsors here in the United States.”

Originally launched for Venezuelans in October 2022, the CHNV program was later expanded in January 2023 to include Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians. The parole initiative gives foreign nationals two-year authorization into the U.S. and work permits, provided they have not previously entered the country illegally and pass other vetting processes.

Green referred to the CHNV program as a “massive shell game” that allows 30,000 otherwise inadmissible foreign nationals to simply enter the country every month in lieu of crossing the border unlawfully.

At the beginning of August, DHS confirmed that they placed the program on hold following an internal audit. That report — first publicized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) — identified a litany of red flags, such as 100,948 CHNV forms being completed by just 3,218 sponsors, 24 of the 1,000 most used Social Security numbers by sponsors belonging to a deceased person and an IP address located in Tijuana, Mexico, being used more than 1,300 times.

Matt O’Brien, investigation director at the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), told the DCNF that the CHNV program is inherently susceptible to fraud due to the inherent reliance on sponsors and foreign governments.

“The supposed improvements made by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) simply can’t lead to better vetting,” O’Brien said to the DCNF. “The entire structure of the program encourages fraud because it relies on a ‘sponsor’ relationship that is impossible to verify and imposes no enforceable obligations on sponsor or beneficiary.”

“Second, and perhaps more importantly, one cannot vet Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans or Nicaraguans,” O’Brien continued. “None of these countries have reliable, functioning records systems. And none of them share information with the U.S.”

The program has so far paroled roughly half a million foreign nationals into the U.S. since it launched in January 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection. There are more than 1.6 million other foreign nationals awaiting travel authorization into the country through the CHNV program.

CHNV is being relaunched with bolstered procedures meant to address the issues that initially halted the program, such as manually vetting sponsors in smaller numbers. Sponsors suspected of engaging in fraud in the program will continue to be referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for investigation.

However, the House Homeland Security Committee says DHS hasn’t explained what’s improved in the program now that is back up and running.

“DHS resumed issuing travel authorizations but has not provided the Committee with any additional information on how they intend on preventing fraud,” a House Homeland Committee spokesperson stated to the DCNF.

The spokesperson also noted that DHS has not satisfied the committee’s document requests for information following the allegations of mass fraud.

FAIR also noted that the program is better off being abolished.

“DHS announced it has already restarted CHNV, while offering only very vague assurances that they’ve fixed the problems,” FAIR President Dan Stein said in a statement, noting that DHS has not explained how they plan to vet each sponsor. “The American public has every reason to be very skeptical.”

“There is only one way to address the myriad problems with the Biden-Harris CHNV program,” Stein continued. “As House Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted earlier this month when FAIR exposed the rampant fraud: ‘Shut it down permanently.’”

DHS did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

Featured Image: Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz

Daily Caller

NEWT GINGRICH: Europe’s Elites Were Finally Told To Take A Look In The Mirror

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Newt Gingrich

In an amazing show of courage, Vice President J.D. Vance offered an intervention for some of our European allies.

That is the best way to think of the two historic speeches he made in France and Germany last week.

In Paris, Vice President Vance pledged the United States would do whatever it takes to lead the world in the development of Artificial Intelligence. He went on to assert that Europe’s automatic response to regulate technological change rather than adapt to it was doomed to fail.

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Vance warned the Europeans that the Trump administration would retaliate to protect American high-tech companies from being fined and regulated by the European community.

Then, Vance went to the Munich Security Conference. It is the annual meeting of European leaders concerned about defense and threats to peace. The Vice President shocked the Europeans by launching a frontal assault on the decay of their political system.

As Vance put it:

“But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor.  And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America.”

He then went through a litany of specific complaints about the behavior of different European countries. They ranged from failing to control immigration, suppressing free speech, and Brussels seeking to control and define futures of independent countries such as Hungary and Romania.

The leading French newspaper, Le Monde (their equivalent of the New York Times) asserted that the American Vice President was declaring “ideological war on Europe.”

Le Monde was right. The European elites have been decaying for at least two generations. They hide behind their privileged status and take ideological positions that feel good but are destructive. Europe’s failures are devastating for most everyday Europeans.

I have personal knowledge about this. I have a Ph.D. in Modern European History – and I have lived in France, Germany, Belgium and Italy. As a young Army dependent, we were living in France when the French Army came back from Algeria, killed the French Fourth Republic and brought back General Charles de Gaulle to establish the Fifth Republic.

It is now the longest serving non-royal government in French history.

The European elites value each other’s opinions more than they value serving the people of Europe. The European elites live in a fantasy world of green policies that destroy industries and jobs, welfare policies which destroy the work ethic, and immigration policies which undermine the popular culture. They simply hope for a peaceful world without a strong military.

Meanwhile, state enforced speech codes protect Islamic extremists at the expense of local citizens.

The result has been a steady decline of European culture, economic development, and defensive capacity.

The Afghan Islamist who wounded more than two dozen people and killed a mother and her two-year-old daughter with a car two days before the supposed security conference signals the willful avoidance of reality at the heart of the elite European worldview.

To be clear, I admire European civilization. I believe America is far stronger and safer if Europe is healthy and capable of growing and defending itself.

I hope vice president Vance’s intervention at least starts European elites thinking about what must be done to revive their continent.

For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

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Trump fires chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, appoints new military leader

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Mariane Angela

President Donald Trump announced Friday the dismissal of General Charles Brown, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed his gratitude toward Brown for his extensive contributions and leadership, wishing him and his family a prosperous future. Brown’s departure marks a pivotal moment in U.S. military leadership following over 40 years of service.

“I want to thank General Charles “CQ” Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote.

Simultaneously, Trump introduced his nominee for Brown’s successor.

“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a “warfighter” with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump said.

Trump said Caine’s appointment comes after he was overlooked for advancement during former President Joe Biden’s presidency.

“General Caine was passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden. But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military,” Trump said. President Trump also announced plans to appoint five additional senior military officials, tasks he has delegated to Secretary Hegseth.

It was reported Thursday that Hegseth plans to dismiss Brown as part of President Trump’s commitment to eliminate “wokeness” from the military. Brown reportedly appears on a list of proposed removals submitted to Congress.

Brown had previously expressed his wish to retain his position even after Trump took office, and according to sources speaking to NBC News in Dec. 2024, Trump seemingly moderated his views on the general. Biden nominated Brown as chairman in 2023, and despite a heated confirmation hearing where senators scrutinized his alleged implementation of racial quotas in Air Force hiring practices, he was confirmed.

Meanwhile, Brown’s replacement, Caine, took office as the associate director for Military Affairs at the CIA on Nov. 3, 2021, after serving as the director of Special Programs at the Pentagon. Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, an F-16 pilot with extensive experience including over 150 combat hours, was commissioned in 1990 and has held numerous key roles, from the White House staff to special operations, and balances his military career with entrepreneurial ventures.

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