Since October 2021, the Department of Homeland Security has granted parole to over 1.5 million people, according to a Congressional Budget Office report published in May 2023. About two-thirds were paroled into the United States after crossing the border illegally and ending up in crowded detention centers. The state of Florida successfully sued to stop these releases; that ruling is being appealed.

The Biden administration has created special parole programs for other urgent circumstances: Officials used parole to allow 75,000 Afghans into the United States in 2021 and 2022 under Operation Allies Welcome and 166,000 Ukrainians after Russia invaded in 2022, according to MPI.

The Ukraine program required migrants to have a U.S. sponsor and to enter the country through an airport. Officials created it after thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war began showing up at the U.S. southern border seeking to enter the country.

After the program led to fewer Ukrainians showing up at the border, the Biden administration created similar programs for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, based on political, social and economic crises in each country. Border apprehensions of migrants from Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua then plunged once people from those countries could enter the United States through parole, which administration officials have touted as a measure of the program’s success.

DHS has said it would grant parole to up to 360,000 people annually from those four countries at airports.

Separately, DHS is using parole to allow in up to 45,000 migrants a month through official checkpoints on the southern border if they schedule an appointment through an app known as CBP One.