Internal documents indicate that in just a few months, the United States received more than 1.5 million requests from individuals hoping to sponsor the entry of migrants from four countries, an extraordinary number that could threaten the Biden administration's goal of reducing border crossings.

The influx of hundreds of thousands of sponsorship applications on behalf of would-be migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has overburdened caseworkers at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which can only authorize 30,000 arrivals per month under the program.

US Migrant Crisis

Citizens, residents, and others with legal immigration status in the United States may sponsor migrants from these four nations if they consent to financially support them. The humanitarian parole authority grants work permits valid for two years to migrants who arrive under the program.

Due to the enormous and rapidly increasing backlog of unresolved applications, USCIS has recently changed the way it processes these cases by randomly selecting half of the requests it evaluates each month. The remainder will continue to be allocated according to the first come, first served principle.

Documents obtained by CBS News from the Department of Homeland Security revealed that, as of the end of last month, the agency was receiving an average of nearly 12,000 sponsorship applications per day from individuals seeking to sponsor Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, a number described as "overwhelming."

Due to the monthly limit of 30,00, the documents indicate that less than three days' worth of applications are processed per month. More than 100,000 migrants have entered the United States through the sponsorship program.

At the end of April, the government was supervising more than 580,000 pending Haitian cases, more than 380,000 pending Cuban cases, nearly 120,000 pending Venezuelan cases, and more than 20,000 pending Nicaraguan cases. Other cases were under review or had already been approved.

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Migrant Work Permits

Meanwhile, New York Democrats united with a straightforward message for President Joe Biden: Set asylum-seekers to work. At a press conference in Brooklyn, Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul, Representatives Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler, and labor and business leaders asked Biden for special federal work authorization for the tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in the state since last year.

The leading Democrats in the state demanded swift executive action to alleviate some of the strain on the city's social safety net. It was the first time a group of influential New York Democrats united to urge Biden on immigration, a crucial issue for the 2024 elections.

Party infighting over immigration would undermine Biden's reelection bid and provide Republicans with an easy point of attack. In response to the New York Democrats, a White House official stated that certain populations are already eligible for work authorization and cited the administration's use of Temporary Protected Status.

Once migrants arrive in the United States, they must wait 180 days after submitting an application for the necessary documentation. The backlog fuels the clandestine economy, making laborers susceptible to exploitation.

New York City struggles to replace tens of thousands of vacant positions in municipal agencies. Adams and Hochul advocated for the expansion of the Temporary Protected Status program, which allows certain immigrants to legally labor in the United States to additional countries. They also stated that the state requires additional immigration justices.

The issue has brought Hochul and Adams closer together, even if it places them in conflict with the party's leader. The mayor stated that the governor visited City Hall last week to discuss the migrant crisis.

Hochul's censure of Biden has been less strident than Adams's. She remains a member of the group of fifty influential Democrats assisting his reelection campaign. Adams was removed from the group after he continued to criticize the president's approach to the immigration crisis, which according to Axios and The New York Times, angered White House aides.

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