CHNV Parole Program Ends, Creating Urgent Employer Compliance

The Trump administration terminated the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela parole (CHNV parole) program on June 12, 2025. See: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/06/12/dhs-issues-notices-termination-chnv-parole-program-encourages-parolees-self-deport. According to the administration, notices have already been issued to affected parolees advising that their status has been terminated, that their employment authorization documents (EADs) have been revoked—"effective immediately," and that they are expected to leave the country ("self-deport").

What This Means for Employers

The decision to terminate the CHNV parole program immediately, without any meaningful notice, surprised employers. Many employers hoped the administration would provide advance notice before terminating the program. Interestingly, only a day before the program's termination, President Trump acknowledged the difficulty employers faced in replacing workers in sectors impacted by recent immigration raids. With 530,000 individuals participating in this program, employers who have relied on CHNV parole workers will most certainly feel the pinch.

Initially, the administration had provided guidance only to affected parolees. Late Friday, however, on June 20, 2025, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) sent employers, who are enrolled in E-Verify, the option to access a "new report to help . . . identify if any of [their] E Verify cases was created with an EAD that has been revoked." USCIS added, "The report contains the document revocation date, case number, and A number for each affected case." USCIS also stated, "The data in this report will be regularly updated as DHS revokes EADs, and this report replaces the use of Case Status Alerts for EAD revocations." USCIS the proceeded to advise E-Verify employers to log in to their E-Verify accounts to access these reports and to adhere to the following guidance:

Most employers, of course, are not enrolled in E-Verify. Even employers who are enrolled in E-Verify, however, may feel some hesitation about relying on guidance from USCIS when Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) are taking such an aggressive approach to worksite enforcement. In this enforcement-heavy environment, with immigration-related offenses being the "investigative and charging priorities" of this administration (https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1388541/dl?inline/), employers would be prudent to take affirmative steps to prepare for the reality of losing these workers. Employers should take the following steps:

1. Check employment records and determine which employees may have been affected by this sudden development and the loss of employment authorization (Category C11). The government's recent publications on this subject should be construed as placing employers on notice that employees from the four affected countries, with CHNV parole, may no longer have employment authorization.
2. Once employers have identified the affected employees, they should meet with each employee, ask whether they have received revocation notices from the government, and if so, inquire about whether they have alternative evidence of employment authorization from the List of Acceptable Documents (f).
3. Employees with a different form of employment authorization (e.g., EAD with the Category C08 [asylum applicant], EAD with the Category C09 [green card applicant], etc.) should be given the opportunity to update their I-9 Form. The employer should complete Supplement B (formerly known as Section 3) to complete the update.
4. Affected CHNV Employees whose status has been revoked, and who do not have alternative forms of employment authorization, should be informed that their employment with the company will need to be terminated (unless the administration changes course on this decision). In many instances, employees will simply volunteer that their EADs have been revoked. In other cases, however, employers (who are not already enrolled in E-Verify and have access to the previously mentioned report) may check card numbers (usually starting with "IOE" on the frontside of EADs) to determine whether EADs have been revoked at the following government website: https://egov.uscis.gov/.
5. Many employers have inquired about when adversely affected employees would need to be terminated. USCIS, however, has not answered that question, stating only in its E-Verify notification that employers must "complete all reverifications within a reasonable amount of time," and adding that employers "cannot continue employing a person who does not provide proof of current employment authorization." As one possible interpretation, because HSI and ICE typically allow employers up to 10 days to resolve issues identified during I-9 audits, applying the same timeframe here would seem to offer a "reasonable amount of time" for purposes of addressing this unexpected and sudden development. While some employers are taking the position that 10-day clock began on June 12 (when USCIS published its notification), others believe the clock began when they received the notifications through E-Verify.

We recognize the action of terminating employment within 10 days of receiving notice, listed under the fifth step above, could be construed as overly cautious. In the eyes of Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—the parent agency of USCIS, HSI, and ICE—employers have a duty to monitor their workforces. Now, with widespread publicity that the CHNV parole program has been terminated, DHS and its subagencies would almost certainly take the position that employers are on notice (actually or constructively) about the loss of status of these CHNV employees. Accordingly, failure to take affirmative steps to address such a situation could lead to significant legal consequences.