What were the major parole and humanitarian entry programs created under Biden, and how many people used them?
Executive summary
The Biden administration created several nationality-specific humanitarian parole programs (notably for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans — “CHNV”), as well as large-scale parole pathways for Afghans and Ukrainians and operational changes that expanded port-of-entry parole through tools like the CBP One app; however, counts of how many people were admitted under those programs diverge sharply across government reports, independent researchers, and partisan analyses [1][2][3][4].
1. CHNV parole program (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans): scope and contested counts
The administration framed the CHNV parole program as a lawful pathway intended to reduce irregular crossings while admitting vulnerable nationals with U.S. sponsors, and DHS highlighted positive early outcomes from the first six months of operations [1][5]; Republican House reporting and a committee fact sheet cite a figure of roughly 462,100 CHNV parole grants since the program began [4], while an academic estimate using CBP port-of-entry encounter differentials placed the initial four‑country cohort at roughly 102,000 in early 2023 — illustrating how methodologies (DHS administrative tallies versus encounter-based estimations) yield very different totals [2][4].
2. Uniting for Ukraine and Afghan evacuation/parole efforts: large-scale emergency uses of parole
The Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program used humanitarian parole to admit Ukrainians with sponsors, and one analyst estimated about 123,000 Ukrainians paroled through U4U from May 2022 through April 2023, with supplemental appropriations providing welfare support for Ukrainian parolees [2][6]; the Afghan evacuation and Operation Allies Welcome also relied heavily on parole and related processing, and one congressional document reports 264,836 grants of parole by CBP’s Office of Field Operations tied to ports‑of‑entry releases and OAW/refuge operations [6].
3. CBP One, ports-of-entry parole, and the operational expansion of “parole at scale”
Beyond nationality programs, the administration expanded port-of-entry parole operationally by using the CBP One app to schedule appointments and process arrivals, with tens or hundreds of thousands using the app — one congressional source reported 636,600 appointments scheduled since January 2023 while other reporting indicates CBP One had been used by 813,000 people as of August 2024 — and the Congressional Research Service summarized that DHS reported 1,340,002 total parole grants in FY2023, the bulk by CBP at ports of entry [4][7][3].
4. Aggregate tallies and why totals vary so widely
Estimates of total people paroled or otherwise allowed entry under Biden-era measures range dramatically: Migration Policy Institute cited that more than 5.8 million migrants had been paroled in or otherwise allowed entry to pursue asylum and other cases as of a summer snapshot [8]; other syntheses put nationality-specific parole admissions since 2021 at “over 750,000” for Afghan, CHNV, Ukrainian, and Venezuelan programs combined [9], while public compilations and press summaries have cited figures near 530,000 parole beneficiaries as of August 2024 [9][7]. These discrepancies reflect divergent inclusions (parole vs. other “allowed entry” categories), different time windows, and whether analysts count CBP port‑of‑entry parole, parolees admitted under OAW, or people who simply used CBP One to schedule a future encounter [3][9][8].
5. Political framing, data gaps, and the limits of available reporting
Partisan sources stress different narratives: DHS fact sheets foreground program benefits and early success metrics [5], Republican House materials and oversight reports emphasize high counts and alleged program abuse or “mass parole” framing [4][10], and independent think tanks produce model‑based estimates with their own assumptions [2][11]; authoritative consolidation is hampered by DHS reporting practices, varying definitions of parole versus other temporary admissions, and limited public breakdowns by program and fiscal year, so precise unified totals are not available in the public sources provided [3][2].
Conclusion: the best-supported takeaways
The administration created multiple major parole pathways — CHNV for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans; Uniting for Ukraine; evacuation and parole processing for Afghans; and operational expansions like CBP One that produced large volumes of port‑of‑entry parole — and official and secondary-source counts place admissions anywhere from the low hundreds of thousands for specific nationality programs up through aggregated figures in the millions depending on definitions and timeframes, with DHS/CRS reporting a 1.34 million parole grants figure for FY2023 and other outlets reporting both much higher multi‑year aggregates and substantially lower program‑specific estimates [1][2][3][8][4]. Available reporting documents both program impacts touted by DHS and serious disputes about scale and oversight raised by congressional critics, and public data limitations prevent a single definitive headcount from being produced from these sources alone [5][10].