SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Despite an ongoing immigration crackdown, new data shows the number of people being temporarily allowed into the United States on humanitarian parole has skyrocketed over the past year.
Humanitarian parole is when a person is temporarily let into the country for humanitarian reasons or public benefit. It is usually one year or less and does not directly lead to any permanent legal status.
According to a new report from Syracuse, the number of "inadmissibles" — people without valid documentation arriving at ports of entry — is up by about 72% over the last 12 months. The number of non-citizens admitted temporarily rose from just over 3,000 in February 2025 to nearly 13,000 in January of this year.
Nerea Woods, an immigration attorney for the Law Offices of Andrew Nietor, said the decisions are made on an individual basis.
"This is all decided on a case-by-case matter by the port of entry officials by CBP," Woods said.
Woods said she has not had a client paroled under the current administration.
"So personally, the cases that I've seen, I have not had a client that entered under this administration," Woods said.
Although the number of people allowed into the country temporarily is up, it remains significantly lower than under past administrations.
In January, India topped the list of countries with the most people allowed in, followed by Mexico and China. It is unclear exactly why, but Woods said it shows that some nationalities are being processed more frequently, a pattern seen in the past.
"When the war in Ukraine broke out, we started seeing that the only people who were processed were people from Ukraine," Woods said.
Woods said the report is just a snapshot of what is really happening at the border, because of what it does not show.
"What it doesn't show is who's being turned away, essentially, it's only showing who's being processed, and from those people being processed, who's then allowed to come in under this parole situation," Woods said.
The Trump administration has not publicly commented or announced any policy shift about why more people are being paroled into the country.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
