The Biden administration’s program that let hundreds of thousands of migrants enter America temporarily and work is being labeled an “unmitigated disaster” in a House report detailing examples of “rampant fraud and abuse.” 

The GOP wing of the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement released a 14-page interim report on what lawmakers say is the “fraud-ridden, unmitigated disaster” of the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela parole program. The program allows migrants from those four countries to fly to America and work for two years legally if they have someone in America to sponsor and support them, and they pay their own travel expenses. 

The CHNV was put on hold in July after an internal report found that more than 100,000 applicants were supported by only 3,200 sponsors, which sparked concerns that “serial sponsors” were potentially using the program for sex trafficking. However, it was restarted in August.

According to the House report, as many as 30,000 migrants a month, who “otherwise have no basis to enter the country,” are allowed to board flights to America and work for two years. Since the program’s launch, more than 531,000 migrants from the four countries have been granted “parole.”

The committees found other examples of fraud, such as immigration officials approving supporter applications “even when the supporter submitted fraudulent documents” or if they “admitted that the income they plan to use to support the CHNV alien includes income derived from criminal activity.” 

Supporter applicants have also admitted they are receiving government benefits as part of their income, which the report says means that “American taxpayers may actually end up supporting” the migrants. Immigration officials also “refused to tell” lawmakers if there is “any mechanism or remedy” to make sure people who apply as a sponsor can actually provide the migrant with financial support.

Additionally, lawmakers said more than 80,000 supporter applications that were approved belong to migrants in America on a “short-term basis” and who are “subject to removal” at “any time.”

“As a result, CHNV is a supercharged chain migration program in which foreign nationals in the U.S. on a temporary basis can sponsor additional foreign nationals to travel to the U.S. on a temporary basis, who can then sponsor additional foreign nationals to enter the country, and so on,” the report explained. 

While the parole program is only supposed to apply to migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, there have been instances of parole applications being approved for migrants who do not live in those four countries.

The report also raised concerns that the program was being used for sex trafficking, saying, “A fraud analysis of CHNV applications revealed that some applications that were sent from the same IP addresses were submitted on behalf of a high proportion of female CHNV aliens. In one such case, 21 supporter applications were submitted from the same IP address on behalf of 18 females and only three males. At least six of the females were under the age of 18.”

Beyond the “disaster” of the approval process for sponsors, the report criticized the CHNV program as it noted that Congress approved immigration parole programs in 1952, but in 1996, lawmakers implemented stricter rules for who could apply for the program.  Specifically, lawmakers required the government to approve parole on a “case-by-case basis.” 

However, the report says, “The Biden-Harris Administration refuses to follow the law, instead opting to abuse its authority by creating parole programs for entire classes of foreign nationals.”

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services agency did not respond to a request for comment by the Sun.

While the CHNV was launched as part of President Biden’s 2023 plan to curb illegal immigration, it has been plagued by concerns about the potential for fraud and abuse. 

Before the program got up and running again in August, the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News that it was taking steps to “strengthen the integrity of the process” of vetting sponsors. The department also said sponsor applicants will face a more rigorous background check and be required to show they can financially support a migrant, and individuals who “appear to be exploiting or abusing the process will be non-confirmed.” 

Amid the concerns about fraud among the sponsors, DHS told NBC News that the migrants who were granted parole have been thoroughly vetted and that the department has not found issues with the process of approving individuals applying for parole.