GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Jean-Paul doesn’t know what to do after his sister and two nephews got an email from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last week saying, “please depart the United States immediately.”
The three family members, fleeing gang violence in Haiti, have been in the country for about a year. Jean-Paul, a U.S. citizen for 25 years, sponsored them through the Biden administration’s effort to create more legal pathways for migrants under humanitarian parole.
“It slaps us in the face,” said Jean-Paul, who asked to only be identified by his first name because of his family’s immigration status.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed it sent termination notices to migrants who entered the country using CBP One, a Biden-era app that became a key path for asylum seekers to legally enter the country in recent years.
But notices were also mistakenly sent some immigration attorneys who are U.S. citizens – including Catherine Villanueva, a Grand Rapids attorney who represents Jean-Paul’s family – likely because their emails are in the app. She thought it was spam at first, then Villanueva started getting panicked calls from clients.
“It really seems like an effort to terrorize people,” she said.
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The email from “automatedmessage@cbp.dhs.gov” told recipients their parole will be terminated within seven days and directed them to leave the country or face deportation.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” the notice said. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States – the federal government will find you.”
The emails were seemingly sent en masse as part of President Donald Trump’s broad promise to deport millions of people.
But instead of focusing on criminal migrants, these efforts have also included bulk removals of migrants who were granted humanitarian parole – a temporary status that allows people fleeing their home country to live and work in the United States.
The White House tried to revoke this status for thousands from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but was blocked by a federal judge last week.
The latest DHS emails show the Trump administration is putting the CBP One app, another arm of humanitarian parole, in the crosshairs.
The CBP One app allowed migrants without documents to schedule appointments at the Southern border. After Trump took office in January, the app was halted and thousands of appointments were canceled.
It’s since been turned into a self-deportation reporting app called CBP Home.
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More than 900,000 people reportedly used CBP One to enter the country, but DHS did not confirm how many received notices directing them to leave immediately.
“We are acting in the best interest of the country and enforcing the law accordingly,” an agency spokesperson said.
The DHS email, which encourages people to self-deport, has only created “confusion and fear” for Jean-Paul’s family.
“If they don’t want them to be here, what am I going to be doing?” he said. “Haiti is not a place where you can send people. There’s no flights over there. They don’t know when airlines are going to fly into Haiti.”
The Federal Aviation Administration banned all flights to Haiti in November after three commercial jets were struck by gunfire amid growing gang violence. That ban was recently extended through Sept. 8.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Jean-Paul, who turned to his attorney for answers.
For Villanueva, sending a “sweeping email” to anyone who used CBP One is alarming.
“To have this happen when they’ve been doing everything correct, then being told ‘you don’t belong here, you have to leave,’ it just seems so needlessly cruel,” she said.
Two other immigration attorneys in Massachusetts, also American citizens, reported they’ve been told to leave the country too.
A DHS spokesperson said immigration officials used the “known email addresses” of migrants to send the notifications. But there may have been “unintended recipients” if an email address was provided by American citizens.
“They’re acknowledging that they’re basically sending spam,” Villanueva said. “The spam is in the form of a very cruel threat that immigration enforcement is going to come after them if they don’t leave the country.”
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It remains unclear if the federal government will act upon the termination notices.
The DHS email urges migrants to report their departure on CBP Home or face “potential criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties, and any other lawful options available to the federal government.”
But Villanueva says the email doesn’t indicate that there are other legal pathways for migrants with temporary status, like applying for asylum, visas or family-based petitions.
“The point of that email, and this is what was so dangerous, is to try to get people to give up,” she said.
