U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, is updating a program that allows some U.S. citizens and permanent residents to apply to bring their family here from Haiti.
The Haitian Family Reunification Program has been around since 2014 and uses an authority called humanitarian parole. It’s a temporary immigration status that has allowed Ukrainians, Afghans and others to come to the U.S.
The updated policy moves much of the application process online, and family members can be interviewed outside of Haiti.
Previously, people wanting to bring family to the U.S. under the Haitian program had to first apply with USCIS. The agency then conducted in-person interviews with those family members in Haiti.
But the agency says severe insecurity in the country has made that impossible. The USCIS field office in Port-au-Prince closed permanently in 2019. USCIS says in-person interviews have been on hold and new paroles have not been issued in years.
