Parole is a legal fiction. A person is allowed through the door and, by statute, treated as though still standing outside it. INA 212(d)(5)(A) lets the Secretary of Homeland Security parole an applicant for admission "temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit," adds that "such parole of such alien shall not be regarded as an admission," and ends by returning the person to custody once the purpose is served. Every program discussed below was built on that sentence, and every termination invoked it.
What parole gives, and what it does not
A parolee may work, but only with an employment authorization document under category (c)(11), which USCIS grants in its discretion and which cannot outlast the parole. A parolee may apply for adjustment of status, because INA 245(a) opens it to anyone "inspected and admitted or paroled"; for most that means an immediate relative petition, and for Cubans the Cuban Adjustment Act. A parolee has no status. Parole cures no ground of inadmissibility, confers no admission, and under 8 CFR 212.5(e) ends automatically on departure or expiry, or on written notice whenever an official decides that "neither humanitarian reasons nor public benefit warrants the continued presence of the alien." Expiry or termination without another basis to remain is, under the February 2025 NTA memo, a trigger for a Notice to Appear. Travel documents for people already here, including advance parole, are covered in this site's travel documents explainer; the one change since is that on August 13, 2026 the BIA held in Matter of Delcarmen-Lara that leaving on advance parole is a departure for the unlawful presence bars.
What it costs
The request is Form I-131 with a Form I-134 from a financial supporter. USCIS's fee schedule charges $630 on paper or $580 online for an initial parole document for a person abroad, $630 for parole in place, and $630 or $580 for re-parole from inside the country; military parole in place for a service member's spouse, parent, son or daughter is free. Those are the filing fees. H.R. 1 added a second layer that cannot be waived. An immigration parole fee, $1,000 for FY2025 and $1,020 since January 1, 2026, is collected each time a person is actually paroled: by CBP at the port for initial and advance parole, and by USCIS for parole in place and re-parole, where since October 16, 2025 the agency notifies an applicant it is prepared to approve that the fee is due first and grants nothing until it is paid. The work permit carries its own surcharge: an initial (c)(11) EAD is $520 on paper plus a $560 H.R. 1 fee, and a renewal adds $280. A parolee who arrives, is paroled, and applies to work has paid roughly $2,700 in federal fees before the first paycheck, and the initial EAD is valid for no more than a year.
The programs
CHNV. The processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans were terminated by a Federal Register notice of March 25, 2025 that also cut every existing grant short on April 24. A district court in Massachusetts blocked the early terminations in April; on May 30, 2025 the Supreme Court in Noem v. Doe stayed that order over a dissent by Justice Jackson describing "nearly half a million" people whose two-year grants were ended "in one fell swoop." On June 12, 2025 DHS began emailing termination notices, effective immediately, revoking work authorization with them. The First Circuit held in September 2025 that the termination was likely lawful. What survived was narrower: a May 28, 2025 order requiring USCIS to keep adjudicating the asylum, adjustment and other applications CHNV parolees had already filed, which the government appealed and then abandoned. A former CHNV parolee in 2026 is a person without status whose pending application, if any, is still being decided.
CBP One. In April 2025 DHS sent emails to up to 985,000 people who had been paroled at ports of entry after app appointments, terminating their parole without explanation. On March 31, 2026 Judge Burroughs in Doe v. DHS held the emails exceeded DHS's authority and violated its own regulation, which requires an individual decision and written notice, and ordered the class restored to parole. Three weeks later DHS reported that the CBP Commissioner had found the purpose of every such parole served and that individualized termination notices would follow. The court won the point of procedure; the outcome is being re-issued one letter at a time.
Family reunification parole. The programs for relatives of citizens and residents from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras, invitation-only for approved I-130 beneficiaries, were terminated on December 15, 2025, with existing grants to end January 14, 2026 unless an I-485 was already on file. On January 24, 2026 the same Massachusetts court enjoined that part; USCIS says it disagrees with the decision but is complying, and that the termination notices already sent "may be disregarded." No new invitations issue. Existing FRP parole and its work permits run to their original end dates while the injunction holds.
Uniting for Ukraine. Intake of the supporter form was paused on January 28, 2025 and has not resumed; no Ukrainian abroad can be sponsored. For those already here, USCIS resumed re-parole in August 2025: Form I-131 filed no earlier than 180 days before expiry, with proof of compliance with the original conditions, the $630 filing fee and the $1,020 parole fee on approval, and a new I-765 afterwards.
Afghans. Those paroled under Operation Allies Welcome with an OAR or PAR class of admission are considered for re-parole automatically if an asylum or adjustment application is pending; anyone else must file the I-131 before expiry, and the fee exemptions ended January 31, 2025.
Parole in place. The version for spouses and stepchildren of citizens, Keeping Families Together, was vacated by a Texas district court on November 7, 2024. The judgment went further than the program: it declared that DHS lacks authority under 212(d)(5)(A) "itself" to grant parole "in place" at all, or to treat it as parole "into the United States" for adjustment. The military version continues: one-year grants for service members, reservists, veterans not dishonorably discharged, and their spouses, widows, parents, sons and daughters who entered without inspection. USCIS's median for parole in place was 12.5 months in FY2026, up from 4.5.
Individual humanitarian parole. The case-by-case request for a person abroad, on I-131 and I-134, for medical treatment, a funeral, a court appearance, is what the statute describes and what remains. There is no definition of "urgent humanitarian reasons," the burden is on the petitioner, and a grant now comes with the $1,020 fee at the port unless one of the statutory exceptions applies.
Cubans and the I-220A
The Cuban Adjustment Act requires that the applicant was "inspected and admitted or paroled" and has been physically present for a year. Many Cubans who crossed the border were released on Form I-220A, an order of release on recognizance, and in Matter of Cabrera-Fernandez (2023) the Board held that such a release is conditional parole under INA 236, not parole under 212(d)(5), and confers no eligibility. The government's own detention theory then overtook it. Having argued since 2025 that everyone who entered without inspection is held under INA 235 rather than 236, the government told the Eleventh Circuit in July 2025 that the Cuban petitioners had been detained under 235 after all. On February 23, 2026 the court vacated the Board's orders and sent the cases back to decide whether a release from 235 detention is parole. As of August 2026 the Board had not ruled. An I-220A holder should not file an I-485 on the strength of the remand alone, and should not assume the question will be resolved in their favor.
Termination and enforcement
The January 23, 2025 Huffman memorandum told ICE, CBP and USCIS to review anyone paroled under a program that "may be paused, modified, or terminated" and to consider ending the parole and applying expedited removal. A parolee whose grant is terminated becomes an applicant for admission with no status, and under the ICE implementation guidance bears the burden of proving two years' continuous presence to avoid expedited removal. The regulation's promise of written notice is what the CBP One class won in March 2026; it is a promise of a letter, not of a hearing.
What to do
- Know the end date of the parole and the EAD, and file re-parole 180 days before it where a re-parole process exists. For FRP and CBP One parolees, keep the court orders and any USCIS notice saying earlier terminations are stayed.
- File the underlying application now. Asylum, an I-130 with I-485, or the Cuban Adjustment Act after a year: a pending application is what the May 2025 order protects, and it is the only thing that outlasts the parole.
- Budget for the H.R. 1 fees: $1,020 at grant, $560 on the first work permit, $280 on each renewal, none waivable.
- Do not travel on advance parole while unlawful presence or a pending application is in play; since August 2026 the departure counts.
- On a termination notice, get counsel the same week. Whether the notice was individual, whether a class order covers the person, and whether two years' presence can be proven decide what happens next.
The statute says "case-by-case." The government used that phrase to end programs that had granted parole to hundreds of thousands; the courts have used it to require that the ending, too, be done one case at a time.