U.S. pauses migrant sponsorship program due to fraud concerns

The Biden administration has paused a migrant sponsorship policy it set up to discourage illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border due to concerns about fraud among sponsors. The policy allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly to the U.S. legally each month if American sponsors agree to support them financially. The administration first started the program in late 2022 and expanded it in early 2023 to dissuade migrants from those crisis-stricken countries from traveling to the U.S. southern border. The Department of Homeland Security said it stopped issuing travel documents to people applying for the program while it investigates applications filed by U.S.-based sponsors. The pause, the sources added, was triggered by concerns raised by the fraud detection branch of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which noted a significant number of would-be sponsors were applying to sponsor multiple migrants. Since its inception, the CHNV policy has allowed roughly 520,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to fly to U.S. airports after rounds of security vetting, according to government data