The email came in before dawn on Friday with an alarming first line.
“It is time for you to leave the United States.”
The sender was listed as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The unsigned message declared that the agency was “exercising its discretion to terminate your parole,” a type of interim permission to be in the country, and it threatened law enforcement actions against those who stayed “unless [they had] otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain here.”
The recipient, Hasan Shafiqullah, was surprised. He is a lawyer for The Legal Aid Society in New York — and a U.S. citizen.
“It was super alarming,” Shafiqullah said. Despite having been a citizen since he was 8 years old, he’d seen too many news stories of green card holders being detained to not do a “double take.”
In fact, DHS had sent the same email to thousands of immigrants in recent weeks, including those who used the CBP One app to make an appointment at a port of entry. What’s becoming clear is how “indiscriminately” those ominous emails were sent out, said Shafiqullah, including to people for whom it should not apply.
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Both he and another colleague at Legal Aid received one, as did many of their clients who have an asylum application pending, meaning they should not currently be removable, according to Shafiqullah. Some fled Venezuela after protesting the authoritarian Maduro regime and came to the U.S. through the Biden administration’s CBP One app.
Such people often have pending court dates and could face additional legal peril if they follow the email’s instructions and leave. Missing a court appearance could get them ordered removed in absence and “ineligible to return for ten years,” said Shafiqullah. “It’s wildly inappropriate to tell them to leave the country right now.”
The administration has been up front about ending protections for people who used the Biden-era app, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed that it has issued notices terminating parole for certain individuals. “CBP used the known email addresses of the alien to send notifications,” a CBP spokesperson wrote in an email. “If a non-personal email — such as an American citizen contact — was provided by the alien, notices may have been sent to unintended recipients.”
The fallout has been chaotic. Many Ukrainians in the U.S. on humanitarian parole also got similar emails several weeks ago, before DHS claimed it was an error.
Reading an email with the words “Do not attempt to remain in the United States – the federal government will find you” has had a predictable emotional impact. Immigrants have taken to Reddit and legal offices with questions about the scammy-seeming notes. One Ukrainian parolee told Reuters she “couldn’t breathe normally and was uncontrollably crying” when she got the notice.
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Shafiqullah himself is not sure exactly why he received the email, which also tells recipients that benefits like work authorization will be terminated. Due to his legal work on immigration issues, his name is listed as the attorney of record on hundreds of applications for work permits for people granted parole. “I don’t know if it’s just like scanning software pulling anything,” he said.
But he says the sloppiness of sending to a citizen like him, other lawyers, as well as asylum seekers who have a right to continue their cases, appears “deliberate.”
“They’re hoping people will just freak out and self deport,” he said, “even though they have, hopefully, a viable form of relief and application for relief pending.”
