The Department of Homeland Security says it is continuing to accept requests for asylum-seekers arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, and is authorizing travel for certain nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela seeking to lawfully enter the United States through a humanitarian parole program beyond Jan. 20, when President-elect Donald Trump will take office.

Both programs use a U.S. Customs and Border Protection mobile app, CBP One, which administration officials on Tuesday touted as helping to cut down illegal crossings at the border.

Overall, officials said, the Border Patrol recorded approximately 47,330 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border in December – the lowest number since August of 2020 and lower than the monthly averages in 2019.

“We’ve made no change to the CBP One process or to” the parole program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, known as CHNV, in the past couple of months, a Homeland Security official said.

“We do continue to schedule CBP One appointments; those are generally scheduled 21 days out,” the official said. “We believe that as an important part of our overall work that has helped bring border encounters down to this low point.”

The app has become a target for Trump, who campaigned on a massive deportation of migrants, and has said he wants to deactivate it. Though immigration activists acknowledge they do not yet know which programs Trump plans to end, they are anticipating changes to the one for refugees and for humanitarian reasons, including United for Ukraine and the parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

“We are assuming that CHNV will be paused, eliminated on day one,” said a refugee advocate who asked to remain anonymous to talk frankly about the pending immigration changes and the uncertainty many migrants will now face with the incoming Trump administration’s immigration policies. “Exactly what that looks like, we don’t know.”

The humanitarian parole program, along with Uniting for Ukraine, a similar program for nationals of Ukraine that was the precursor for CHNV, could well be among the reportedly more than 100 executive orders Trump has said he’s prepared to sign on his first day back in the Oval Office for a second term.

That is making immigration advocates uneasy. Immigration lawyers have been advising people to seek other immigration protections like Temporary Protected Status if they qualify, and or to apply for asylum rather than risk being without legal status in the United States.

“The administration created a process that was safe and orderly and successful for large numbers of people in need to find safety in the U.S. in ways that benefited Americans and the American communities and the American businesses that they are now connected to, and the rule is going to change on them,” the advocate, who also works with Ukrainian citizens, said of the Biden administration.

Beneficiaries of the parole progam need to have a sponsor in the U.S., and after passing certain background checks and tests, they are admitted for two years and given work authorizations. Travel to the U.S. is coordinated using the CBP One app.

Beneficiaries and their sponsors, both of whom had to meet certain criteria, “followed all the rules,” the advocate said. “They did it the right way, and the rules are all going to change on them, and that’s not fair.”

The program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans was modeled after the program for Ukraine citizens that was launched in April 2022 and has since allowed more than 187,000 Ukrainians to resettle legally in the U.S. In October 2023, a similar program was put in place for Venezuelans to cut down on illegal border crossings, and then expanded three months later to include Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

The biggest beneficiaries are Cubans, who under existing U.S. law can apply for permanent residency after a year and a day in the country. The biggest losers are Nicaraguans, who unlike Haitians and Venezuelans have not had any new designation of Temporary Protection Status that would allow them to temporarily live and work in the U.S.

This leaves thousands of immigrants in the program vulnerable to the new administration’s deportations plans.

A Homeland Security spokesperson told the Miami Herald that as of the end of November, 531,670 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans had arrived lawfully in the U.S. under the parole program. The breakdown is 110, 240 Cubans, 211,040 Haitians, 93,080 Nicaraguans and 117,320 Venezuelans.

Migrants who are allowed into the United States under the program receive work permits and a two-year authorization to live in the U.S. In August the Biden administration temporarily halted the program due to concerns about fraud and to implement new safeguards. In November, the administration said it would not renew or extend the program for immigrants from the four nations, even as some applicants who applied back in February of 2023 still had not heard about their applications.

Under the program, up to 30,000 migrants a month are allowed to enter from the four countries combined. However, the Homeland Security spokesperson did not say if that remains the case.

Workers at both Miami International Airport and the Hugo Chavez International Airport in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, have told the Miami Herald that the flow of humanitarian-parole beneficiaries from Haiti and other countries has slowed down considerably as of last month.

“DHS continues to process new Advance Travel Authorizations in the parole processes for certain nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela,” the Homeland Security spokesperson said.

The department did say, however, that 44,000 people at the U.S.-Mexico at the border were processed through the CBP One app in December, bringing the total number of individuals who had secured appointments through the app to just under one million. Critics have accused the administration of opening up the border to undocumented migrants. However, the app doesn’t guarantee entry into the U.S. Asylum seekers must first pass an initial screening before they are allowed into the U.S., where they are then enter into an immigration process that will ultimately determine their fate.

Advocates of the humanitarian parole program and Uniting for Ukraine, which also requires sponsorship, say the benefit has been an important lifeline for migrants fleeing harm and also those seeking to unite with family in the U.S.

It has also benefited U.S. communities, said the advocate, who has worked to help migrants paroled in the U.S. Arriving migrants have gone to live in more than 12,000 zip codes around the country due to the sponsorship by Americans, who in some cases have gotten their friends to also take in Ukrainian families.

“There is untapped capacity in the country to welcome people in this way,” the advocate added, ”and we know that it works.”

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