White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was slammed by critics after boasting Monday about the Biden administration’s humanitarian “parolee” program for asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela — as the US preps for a fresh surge of migrants at the southern border.
“You’ve seen the parolee program be so successful,” Jean-Pierre said during her press briefing. “It has, it has, it has, when it comes to illegal migration, you’ve seen it come down by more than 90%, and that’s because of this act — the actions that this president has taken.”
The program, instituted in October for Venezuelans and extended to residents of the other three countries in January, has allowed 30,000 asylum seekers who followed the legal application process to be admitted to the US each month.
Migrants from those countries who showed up at the border without applying for the process were swiftly expelled.
The program had contributed to an overall drop in enforcement encounters at the border, from a record high of 252,012 people in December to 156,787 in January. By March, however, that number had bounced back to 191,899, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which had not yet released numbers for April.
Department of Homeland Security statistics show a steep drop in Border Patrol encounters with residents of Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela under a new parolee program for residents of those nations.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lauded the Biden administration’s “parolee” program for asylum seekers. REUTERS
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the program resulted in a 90% decrease in illegal border crossings. James KeivomEnforcement encounters involving citizens of the four countries targeted by the program had dropped from 91,346 to 14,509 in March — a decline of 84% rather than the “more than 90%” Jean-Pierre claimed.
“Looking forward to reactions from the people who set their hair on fire over Sean Spicer’s crowd size numbers,” joked one Twitter user, Steve Robinson.
“I mean this is just the worse [sic] of her lying for this administration,” said another user. “She may believe it, doubt it, but this is a flat-out lie.”
“A provable lie,” sniffed GOP operative Matt Mackowiak. “Execrable.”
A White House spokesman doubled down on Jean-Pierre’s statement Tuesday, telling The Post: “There was no mix-up. KJP was right … We’ve used this stat multiple times, including in fact sheets and [Biden] remarks. It’s also backed by CBP data.
“Republican officials should explain why they’re in court trying to block those measures that are indeed bringing unlawful immigration down,” the spokesman added.
Tens of thousands of migrants hoping to seek asylum in the US are waiting in Juarez, Mexico, for Title 42 to expire on May 11.
What is Title 42 and what does its end mean for US border immigration?
What is Title 42?
Title 42 is a federal health measure enforced by the US Border Patrol. It allows the agency to kick certain migrants out of the US and return them to Mexico. This includes asylum seekers, who under international law have the legal right to make an asylum claim in America.
Currently, migrants who cross the border illegally and who are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua or Venezuela are subject to Title 42 and could be sent to Mexico.
How did Title 42 start?
President Donald Trump invoked the law in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue the policy. The Trump administration made the case that keeping migrants out of the country would slow down the spread of infections and maintain the safety of federal agents encountering migrants.
What has happened with Title 42 under Biden?
When President Biden took over, he continued to enforce Title 42 with one important change from his predecessor. Biden said Border Patrol agents were only allowed to expel migrants from certain countries under his direction. That meant migrants seeking asylum from countries like Cuba and Venezuela could still seek asylum if they arrived at the border and stay in the US while their cases were decided in court — unless they had a criminal record.
What is happening with Title 42 now?
Title 42 is supposed to be a health policy, not an immigration law. It will end at 11:59 p.m. May 11, when the Biden administration ends all COVID-19-related policies.
Why is it controversial?
Many have called for the policy’s end, saying it’s illegal and that international law guarantees people the right to seek asylum.
Others, like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, warn that the southern border could see up to 13,000 migrants per day crossing with the intention to stay in the country when the measure ends.
What would the end of Title 42 mean for immigration into the US?
It’s unclear exactly how many people have been expelled under Title 42 because there have been scores of people who have attempted to enter the country numerous times and been rejected again and again, but the US Border Patrol said it made an all-time high of more than 2.3 million arrests at the border in the last fiscal year. Forty percent of people who were expelled from the country were ejected under the rules of Title 42.
The Trump-era emergency health order — which was extended by President Biden last year — has been used to expel some 2.5 million migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 73,000 asylum seekers have crossed the southern border in the last 10 days as panic set in ahead of the order’s lapse, the US Border Patrol said Monday. Officials added that 17,000 “gotaways” avoided detection and entered the US illegally.
Migrants gather outside Sacred Heart Church on Monday, in El Paso, Texas. Some 90,000 migrants crossed the southern border in the last 10 days — 17,000 of them illegally, according to the US Border Patrol. James KeivomOverall, the number of undocumented immigrants in the US was at an estimated 11.5 million as of February 2022, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent research organization.
That figure was up from 10.2 million when Biden took office in January 2021, but down from 11.8 million in January 2016, when Barack Obama was president.
During the first three years of the Trump administration, there were between 11.4 million and 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the country, the group estimated. Figures were not available for 2020 or this year.






