Biden administration FREEZES highly-controversial migrant flight program after staggering flaw in the application process was revealed

The Biden administration has halted a controversial plan that would have flown hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the U.S. annually after widespread fraud was discovered.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on Friday that it has temporarily suspended its program that allows up to 30,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) to enter the country each month.

The sudden freeze on the controversial program comes after an internal DHS report revealed widespread fraud among the sponsors who pay the migrants to come to the country, a source familiar with the report said. Fox news.

The freeze will give the agency time to investigate whether fraud has occurred with the sponsorship applications, which are forms filled out by individuals who “agree to provide financial support to a beneficiary and are subject to a background check.”

According to the report, only 3,200 individual sponsors have signed up to support approximately 101,000 migrants, raising concerns at DHS that the system is being abused.

The report alleging fraud also shockingly noted that some of the names used to fill out sponsorship forms belonged to deceased individuals.

Furthermore, in some sponsorship applications, the storage units turned out to be the residential address, while in thousands of applications, certain telephone numbers were used.

An investigation by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a conservative immigration nonprofit that first obtained the report, found that nearly 3,000 sponsorship applications had been submitted using false ZIP codes.

According to a DHS spokesperson, the agency now has “review mechanisms in place to detect and prevent fraud and abuse in our immigration processes. DHS takes any abuse of its processes very seriously,” a DHS spokesperson said.

‘When fraud is identified, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will investigate and file the relevant cases in immigration court. The case will also be referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.’

The spokesperson continued: “Out of an abundance of caution, DHS has temporarily paused the issuance of Advanced Travel Authorizations for new beneficiaries while it conducts a review of supporters’ applications. DHS will resume processing applications as soon as possible, with appropriate safeguards in place.”

“Shut it down permanently,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said of the Biden plan. “This program should never have existed in the first place.”

“It’s just one more way the Biden-Harris administration has welcomed hundreds of thousands of aliens into our country without due process.”

Mark Green, Republican of Tennessee, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, told DailyMail.com: “This admission from the Biden-Harris administration confirms every warning we have ever given about the abusive CHNV mass release program.”

“It also exposes the lie that administration officials, like now-deposed Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, have perpetrated about the quality and scope of the screening process, not only for the inadmissible aliens seeking entry into the country, but also for those attempting to sponsor them.”

“Last year, we issued a subpoena seeking documents related to this program. DHS partially complied, but the Department is still failing to produce certain documents and communications related to the program.”

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at an airport to receive Americans released in a prison exchange. Their program has allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to fly directly to the U.S., obtain work permits and live in the U.S.

Green added: “This is exactly what happens when you create an unlawful mass release program to spare your administration the political embarrassment and bad optics of border crossing. The Biden-Harris administration should end the CHNV program immediately.”

The flight program began in October 2022 and was initially intended for Venezuelans who met certain requirements, including having never entered the U.S. illegally, having a sponsor in the U.S. and passing a biographical screening.

It is striking that the migrants are responsible for their own travel, but the program allows them to fly to the US

The migrants’ sponsors are also required to undergo background checks, making the reported fraud among them even more worrying.

However, DHS stressed that CHNV beneficiaries are “thoroughly screened” before they arrive.

“The tiered screening and vetting for Advanced Travel Authorizations is separate from the screening of U.S.-based supporters,” the spokesperson told Fox News. “DHS has not identified any issues of concern related to the screening and vetting of beneficiaries.”

According to the agency, as of October 2023, there were about 1.6 million applicants awaiting approval from DHS to fly to the U.S. using Biden’s parole program.