Trump Tightens Grip on Deportations With Aggressive Policies Including Hefty Fines, Property Seizures, and Reversal of Biden-Era ‘Paroles’

The Trump Administration is revoking legal status for migrants under the former CBP One program, and doling out daily fines of $1000 to those who don’t comply.

AP/Fernando Llano
Venezuelan migrant Yender Romero shows the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One app on his cell phone, which he said he used to apply for asylum in the U.S. on January 20, 2025. AP/Fernando Llano

The Trump Administration is ramping up efforts on mass deportations of illegal migrants, taking aggressive approaches on those who don’t comply with orders to leave the country.

The White House is taking a hardline approach against migrants who were granted the ability to temporarily live in America by using the Biden-era CBP One app have had their legal status revoked by the Trump Administration and told to leave the country “immediately.”

The online appointment app, used by nearly 1 million people since January 2023, allowed users to remain in the country for a period of two years, with the ability to work under a presidential authority called “humanitarian paroles” — which allows a person to stay within America for a temporary period of time for “urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit” — but those privileges were revoked in a termination notice sent to beneficiaries, according to The Associated Press.

“It’s time for you to abandon the United States,” read the email notice from the Department of Homeland Security that was reviewed by the news outlet. Those who received the notice on Sunday were urged to self-deport on the same app, which has since been renamed CBP Home.

Officials confirmed the termination notices, but did not specify how many were sent out. 

“Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” DHS officials said in a statement, adding that parole authority, enacted in 1952, was used by Mr. Biden more than any other president in history and had “further fueled the worst border crisis in U.S. history.”

The current administration is also drudging up a law from 1996 that was also used during Mr. Trump’s first term in office in which a daily fine of nearly $1,000 can be issued against an individual for failing to comply with the order, according to a report from Reuters. Those who don’t pay are also in danger of having their property seized, according to documents reviewed by the news agency.

Tricia Mclaughlin, a spokeswoman with the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to Reuters that immigrants in the country illegally should “self deport and leave the country now,” also by using the CBP Home app.

“If they don’t, they will face the consequences,” she said. “This includes a fine of $998 per day for every day that the illegal alien overstayed their final deportation order.”

Trump previously used the 30-year-old law during his first term to impose large fines on nine migrants seeking sanctuary in churches. Although the administration later reduced the penalties, it still issued smaller fines of about $60,000 each against at least four of migrants, according to court records obtained by Reuters.

The moves are the latest by Mr. Trump to end and revoke temporary status that was granted under the previous administration.

Last month, DHS officials announced that the agency would revoke a different form of parole granted to over 500,000 people from the countries of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who flew into America at their own expense with a financial sponsor.

The Trump Administration also ended Temporary Protected Status for over a million migrants from Venezuela and Haiti, but that has been put on a temporary hold by a federal judge.


The New York Sun

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