MIAMI (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month.

The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the United States since October 2022. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

The new policy impacts people who are already in the U.S. and who came under the humanitarian parole program. It follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the “broad abuse” of the humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.

During his campaign President Donald Trump promised to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally, and as president he has been also ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and to stay.

DHS said parolees without a lawful basis to stay in the U.S. “must depart” before their parole termination date.

“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status,” DHS said.

Before the new order, the beneficiaries of the program could stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, although the administration had stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer.

The administration decision has already been challenged in federal courts.

A group of American citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration for ending humanitarian parole and are seeking to reinstate the programs for the four nationalities.

Lawyers and activists raised their voices to denounce the government’s decision.

Friday’s action is “going to cause needless chaos and heartbreak for families and communities across the country,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit at the end of February. She called it “reckless, cruel and counterproductive.”

The Biden administration allowed up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries to come to the United States for two years with eligibility to work. It persuaded Mexico to take back the same number from those countries because the U.S. could deport few, if any, to their homes.

Cuba generally accepted about one deportation flight a month, while Venezuela and Nicaragua refused to take any. All three are U.S. adversaries.

Haiti accepted many deportation flights, especially after a surge of migrants from the Caribbean country in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in 2021. But Haiti has been in constant turmoil, hampering U.S. efforts.

Since late 2022, more than half a million people have come to the U.S. under the policy, also known as CHNV. It was a part of the Biden administration’s approach to encourage people to come through new legal channels while cracking down on those who crossed the border illegally.

AP editor Elliot Spagat and writer Tim Sullivan contributed to this report.

A Venezuelan mother desperately searching for her son after U.S. immigration officials detained him says she spotted him shackled on TV among hundreds of migrants the Trump administration has accused of being violent gang members and sent to a Salvadoran prison.

“It’s him. It’s him,” an emotional Mirelis Casique told the BBC of having seen her 24-year-old son, Francisco Javier Garcia Casique, in photos of restrained men in all-white clothing and newly shaved heads. “I recognize his features.”

Casique said her son entered the U.S. in late 2023 to seek asylum. He presented himself to authorities at the border and was released, but was then briefly detained in Texas last year following a routine appearance with immigration officers after they saw his tattoos, she told The New York Times.

Those tattoos included the word “peace” in Spanish, some family names, and a crown. They prompted U.S. authorities to label Garcia Casique a suspected gang member and take him into custody for two months before releasing him with an electronic monitor.

On Feb. 6, law enforcement authorities came to Garcia Casique’s door and took him back into custody, his mother said.

“He doesn’t belong to any criminal gang, either in the U.S. or in Venezuela… he’s not a criminal,” she told The BBC. “What he’s been is a barber.”

A man identifying himself as Garcia Casique’s brother also shared photos of him cutting hair on social media while insisting that his brother is innocent and wrongfully incarcerated.

“What injustice is this? For having tattoos? Why didn’t they investigate him? Why didn’t they send him to his country of origin?” his brother wrote with the photos. “Respect the human rights of innocent people.”

The U.S. and Salvadoran governments have not offered any evidence showing that the deported migrants are connected to the Tren de Aragua gang, which has been designated as a terrorist group by President Donald Trump.

In a court filing, officials acknowledged that many of the people sent to El Salvador do not have criminal records, though they claimed this “does not indicate they pose a limited threat.”

“The lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose,” the administration said in a sworn declaration.

Despite the apparent lack of due process and proof that the migrants are gang members, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said they will be imprisoned for at least a year and forced to perform labor under a program called “Zero Idleness.” This program is designed to make the country’s prison system, which costs $200 million a year to run, self-sustaining, Bukele said.

“As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place,” he said in a statement posted on social media.

Other family members of the imprisoned migrants have made similar pleas for help, insisting that their loved ones have been mistakenly identified as gang members and sent to the maximum-security Salvadoran prison.

“He has lots of tattoos, but that’s not a reason to discriminate against him,” Johanny Sánchez told The Washington Post of her Venezuelan husband, Franco Caraballo, whom she said was among those deported from Texas to El Salvador.

Another Venezuelan mother told the Post that her son, Ali David Navas Vizcaya, vanished after being told last week that he was going to be deported to Venezuela or Mexico. He was detained in early 2024 after appearing for an appointment with immigration officers at the U.S.-Mexico border, she said.

“He told me, ‘Finally, we’re going to be together, and this nightmare is going to be over,’” his mother, Xiomara Vizcaya, who lives in the northern Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto, said of her son’s last phone call to her on Friday.

A relative of migrant Mervin Yamarte, 29, also told NBC News that Yamarte’s family “fainted. They started screaming,” when they saw him in a social media video with a shaved head and ripped shirt among the people deported to El Salvador.

His brother, like many others, said Yamarte was misidentified as a gang member solely because of his tattoos.

The sister of migrant Fritzgeralth De Jesus said the same about her brother.

“From the beginning, they asked constantly about his tattoos. They would ask him if he was a member of the criminal gang, Tren de Aragua, and he always said no,” she also told NBC News.

On Wednesday, an attorney for detained Venezuelan soccer player Jerce Reyes Barrios accused U.S. authorities of deporting him to El Salvador because of his tattoos and a photo of him making hand gestures, which the lawyer said mean “rock and roll” or “I love you.”

His tattoos include a crown on top of a soccer ball with a rosary and the word “Dios,” which means “God” in Spanish, the attorney said in a court filing.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolás Maduro extended his increasingly repressive rule over Venezuela until 2031 when he was sworn in Friday, despite credible evidence that his opponent won the latest election and following protests against his plan to serve a third six-year term.

Venezuela’s legislative palace, where Maduro was sworn in, was heavily guarded by police, military and intelligence officers. Crowds of people, many sporting pro-Maduro T-shirts, gathered in adjacent streets and a nearby plaza.

On Thursday, as hundreds of anti-Maduro protesters took to the streets of the capital, Caracas, aides to opposition leader María Corina Machado said she was briefly detained by security forces and coerced into recording videos.

The popular former lawmaker, whom the government has barred from running for office, had emerged from months of hiding to join the rally to demand that opposition candidate Edmundo González be sworn in as president instead of Maduro.

Machado addressed the rally then left on a motorcycle with her security convoy. Machado’s press team later announced on social media that security forces “violently intercepted” her convoy. Her aides then confirmed to The Associated Press that the opposition hardliner had been detained.

Leaders in the Americas and Europe condemned the government for suppressing opposition voices and demanded her release. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump expressed his support for Machado and González.

“These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!” Trump said on Truth Social.

Maduro’s supporters denied that Machado was arrested, saying government opponents were spreading fake news to generate an international crisis.

The brouhaha ahead of Maduro’s inauguration adds to the litany of allegations of electoral fraud and brutal repression to silence dissent.

Electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner hours after polls closed on July 28, but unlike in previous presidential elections, they did not provide detailed vote counts. The opposition, meanwhile, collected tally sheets from more than 80% of electronic voting machines, posted them online and said the tallies show González won twice as many votes as Maduro.

Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask the country’s high court — also filled with allies of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela — to audit the election results. The court reaffirmed Maduro’s victory without providing thorough evidence and encouraged the electoral council to release the vote counts. But neither the council nor the ruling party produced any evidence that Maduro had won, even though their voting center representatives also were entitled to tally sheets from every voting machine.

The U.S.-based Carter Center, which observed the election on the government’s invitation, declared the opposition-published tallies legitimate. Other election experts that the government allowed to witness the vote said polling records published online by the opposition faction appear to exhibit all of the original security features.

The dispute over the results prompted international outrage and nationwide protests. The government responded with full force, arresting more than 2,000 demonstrators and encouraging Venezuelans to report anyone they suspect to be a ruling-party adversary. More than 20 people were killed during the unrest and many protesters reported being tortured in custody.

It is unclear whether any heads of state were planning to attend Friday’s inauguration ceremony hosted by the ruling party-controlled National Assembly at the legislative palace in Caracas.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a close Maduro ally, said he would skip the event citing the detentions earlier in the week of another longtime Venezuelan opposition member and a human rights defender.

Maduro’s last inauguration, in 2019, was attended by Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel and then-Bolivian President Evo Morales. The 2018 election was widely considered a sham after his government banned major opposition parties from participating.

And it remains unclear if González, who left for exile in Spain in September, will fulfill his promise to return to Venezuela by Friday.

Government officials have repeatedly threatened González with arrest should he step on Venezuelan soil. On Tuesday, González said his son-in-law Rafael Tudares had been kidnapped in Caracas. González’s daughter, Mariana González de Tudares, suggested in a statement that the government was behind her husband’s disappearance.

“At what point did being related to Edmundo González Urrutia become a crime?” she said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Self-exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González, who claims to have defeated President Nicolás Maduro in last year’s presidential election, said his son-in-law was kidnapped Tuesday in Venezuela’s capital.

González, who was traveling in the United States, said Rafael Tudares was kidnapped while on his way to drop off González’s two grandchildren at school in Caracas.

In a post on X, González said “hooded men, dressed in black” intercepted the vehicle and loaded Tudares “into a gold-colored van.”

He did not say what happened to his 6- and 7-year-old grandchildren.

The kidnapping happened despite a significant increase in police and military presence since New Year’s Day across Caracas ahead of Friday’s swearing-in ceremony for Maduro, who the government says won a third term in the July election.

The government’s centralized press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

González, a retired diplomat, represented Venezuela’s Unitary Platform opposition coalition in the presidential election, which he and Maduro both claim to have won. The platform in a statement characterized Tudares’ kidnapping as a “forced disappearance for political reasons.”

“We demand the immediate release of Rafael Tudares and all political prisoners, who are hostages of a regime that knows it is rejected by the vast majority of Venezuelans who spoke with the force of the vote (on July 28),” the coalition said in the statement.

González left Venezuela for exile in Spain in September after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with an election-related investigation. In recent weeks, he has vowed to return to his homeland to take the oath of office.

González, 75, is touring the Americas to try to rally support for his effort to get Maduro out of office by Friday. That’s when, by law, the South American country’s next presidential term begins. On Monday, González met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House as well as with U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s designate to be his national security adviser once he is sworn in on Jan. 20.

González, who has been recognized by several governments including the U.S. as Venezuela’s president-elect, has not explained how he plans to return to the troubled country or wrest power from Maduro, whose ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela controls all aspects of government.

González had never run for office before July. The Unitary Platform coalition selected him in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse María Corina Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Tribunal of Justice from running for any office.

Machado last week urged supporters to demonstrate across Venezuela on Thursday, telling them in a video message that Maduro will not step down on his own and they “must make him leave.” Maduro has asked his supporters to demonstrate Friday.

But it is unclear whether anyone will heed calls to head to the streets with the increased security presence.

On Tuesday, despite being the first day of school after the holidays, children were nowhere to be seen during morning rush hour in Caracas, and some schools remained closed.

“There is tension. As soon as night falls, the city is like a ghost town,” Caracas resident Mari Jimenez said. “We do not feel confident seeing so many police.”

Hours after announcing his son-in-law’s kidnapping, González said he was continuing his multi-country tour with a stop in Panama.

Kidnappings were commonplace in Venezuela at the end of last and beginning of this century, when criminals targeted the wealthy and a thriving middle class. But that type of crime decreased in recent years, as the country’s economy came undone and Venezuelans began to emigrate.

Recently, people have associated kidnappings with the government practice of detaining its real or perceived opponents without following the law. They are seen as part of a campaign to repress anti-government protests that broke out after the election results were announced.

Electoral authorities in July declared Maduro the winner hours after polls closed, but unlike in previous presidential elections, they did not provide detailed vote counts. However, the opposition collected tally sheets from more than 80% of the nation’s electronic voting machines, posted them online and said they showed González had won the election with twice as many votes as Maduro.

The U.S.-based Carter Center, which Maduro’s government invited to observe the presidential election, has said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, who met with González on Monday in Washington, joined the calls for Tudares’ immediate release. In a post on X, he said Tudares’ situation is “a new and unacceptable act of political pressure” against González, whom “the international community certified as the winner of the July elections, something that the regime continues to fail to refute with evidence.”

Meanwhile, Machado denounced that agents had surrounded her mother’s house, set up roadblocks throughout the neighborhood and flown drones in the area.

“Maduro and company, you have no limits in your evil,” she posted on X. “Cowards.”