According to the Daily Caller, there is a “massive loophole” in President Joe Biden’s immigration parole program.

Per the outlet:

[T]he Biden administration’s latest program to admit certain migrants into the U.S.  has a massive loophole that allows for applicants to be in another safe country before when they apply, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Background

Back in January, after facing much criticism for his administration’s mishandling of the southern border, Biden released a plan to supposedly address the massive influx of illegal immigration at the southern border.

The plan has several aspects to it. But, one part of the plan is the expansion of a parole program.

Under this expanded version of the program, 30,000 individuals person month, from the countries of Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua, will be paroled into the U.S. for a two-year period so long as they meet certain requirements, such as having a financial sponsor.

The Biden administration claimed that the expansion of this program will help to cut back on illegal immigration. And, critics, in a sense, agree that the Biden administration will use the program to artificially reduce illegal immigration numbers.

A “shell game”

The loophole, as stated at the outset, is that the program allows migrants to apply for the program from, essentially, anywhere.

Immigration attorney Maria Herrara Mellado provided a first-hand account of the situation to the Daily Caller.

She revealed:

Our clients, some of them, they just arrived to a third country. Let’s say they buy a plane ticket. It happened. They just happen to be in the Dominican Republic or [on a] short vacation. At the end of the day, a lot of people who are coming here are not the ones who are in great need to come here. They happened to be in another country and they have a wealthy immediate relative.

The Biden administration does claim that a parole applicant would be disqualified if he or she is a resident, dual national, or refugee of another country. But, there are exceptions to the rule.

Former acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan argues that the Biden administration, here, is just “using as a shell game to claim victory that they’re addressing the crisis.”

The numbers

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has indicated that, in the first three months of the 2023 fiscal year, the CPB has witnessed 717,660 illegal alien encounters. This includes a record 251,487 encounters in December.

The numbers did drop off in January to 130,000.

Whether it is a legitimate dropoff or whether the drop-off is the result of the “shell game” referred to by Morgan is unclear.