DHS will not renew the two-year parole and work authorizations for roughly half a million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who entered the country since 2022 through procedures that were set up to deter people from illegally crossing over the southern border, the department confirmed in a statement Friday evening.

“As initially stated in the Federal Register notices, a grant of parole under these processes was for a temporary period of up to two years. This two-year period was intended to enable individuals to seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible, and to work and contribute to the United States,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in an email.   

The announcement comes a month before the 2024 presidential election when immigration is a top concern for voters and Vice President Kamala Harris has taken hits from former President Donald Trump for her stewardship of the border with President Joe Biden. Under the Biden-Harris administration illegal border crossings reached their highest levels in history, contributing to a majority of the public wanting to see a reduction in overall immigration.

The Biden administration announced in late 2022 that immigrants seeking admission from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela would not be released into the U.S. if they crossed the border illegally.

Instead, immigrants from those four countries would have the ability to apply from outside the U.S. to be paroled on a two-year basis, which allows the individual to reside in the U.S. without having to make an asylum claim.

The government made no promise that the two-year parole status would be continued and Friday’s announcement revealed that immigrants will now be on their own and must leave the country when their parole status expires or find another legal protection that will allow them to remain here.

“Those who do not have pending immigration benefits or who have not been granted an immigration benefit during their two-year parole period will need to depart the United States prior to the expiration of their authorized parole period or may be placed in removal proceedings after the period of parole expires,” the DHS spokesperson said.

Immigrants were admitted on parole primarily through the CBP One app, a phone application administered by the federal U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. The Biden administration has allowed 30,000 people to be admitted per month.

Immigrants in the U.S. may be able to eligible to apply for temporary protected status, which gives the recipient protection from deportation for 18 months, as well as legal permission to work in the country.

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Although parole status will not be continued, the CHNV program is still running and immigrants outside the U.S. from those four countries may continue to apply for parole, DHS added.

DHS suspended the CHNV program in July following a report by the immigration restrictionist group, Federation for American Immigration Reform, which found that an internal government audit documented a large number of fraudulent applications as the U.S. admitted nearly half a million migrants from four countries.