Attorney General Ford Joins Multistate Effort Urging Courts to Preserve Humanitarian Parole for Over Half a Million Legal Immigrants

Carson City, NV — Today, Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced he has joined a coalition of 17 other state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Doe v. Noem, urging the court to uphold the lower court’s decision and recognize the lawful CHNV parole program. The program allows over 500,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan immigrants, who fled dangerous conditions in their home countries, to maintain legal status in the United States.

"Upending the lives of 500,000 legal immigrants who have done nothing but flee crises in their home countries is not only cruel — it offers nothing beneficial to Americans,” said AG Ford. "These residents of our states are our neighbors; our coworkers; parents of our children’s schoolmates; and members of our congregations. Ripping them away from safety in our country and throwing them back to the situations they have fled will put them in grave danger; risk separating families and throw disruptions into our local economies. These immigrants came here legally, and they should be allowed to stay here legally."

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the CHNV parole program in 2022 and 2023 for immigrants fleeing violence and unbearable conditions in their home countries, specifically Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The program provides parole recipients with the opportunity to live and work legally in the United States on a two-year basis for urgent humanitarian reasons. Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the DHS Secretary to terminate the CHNV parole program and other Biden-Harris era humanitarian parole pathways, abruptly upending the lives of over half a million lawfully present immigrants across the country.

The district court entered a preliminary injunction against DHS’s termination of CHNV parole, explaining that DHS unlawfully revoked their parole status en masse based on flawed legal reasoning. The court maintained that abruptly upending the CHNV parole program would cause irreparable harm and leave over 500,000 immigrants suddenly without legal status, unable to work, and without means to provide for themselves and their families. The Supreme Court stayed the preliminary injunction, as the case continues on appeal in the First Circuit.

In the brief, the coalition defends the district court’s decision, emphasizing that the unlawful termination of CHNV parole en masse would separate families; endanger recipients; disrupt economies; worsen existing labor shortages; and threaten public safety.

Joining AG Ford in submitting this brief, which was led by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Illinois and New York are the attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

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