In a Home Depot parking lot near San Diego, California, last month, five Haitian men were waiting for under-the-table work at six in the morning. Three hours later, the group numbered about 25. Migrant men hanging around a Home Depot is a common sight, but why would these guys from Haiti—from thousands of miles away in the Caribbean—be in El Cajon, California, minutes from the Pacific Ocean?

The answer is President Joe Biden’s novel, brazen immigration “parole” programs.

I chatted with one of the Haitians—let’s call him Michel. He and his friends entered the U.S. under the mass immigration parole program Biden opened for Venezuelans in October 2022 and expanded to Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua in January 2023.

Under this parole program, up to 30,000 aliens a month—who would never qualify for a visa—can apply using a phone app operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, called CBP One. Once approved, they can fly into U.S. airports to apply for parole. This is a formality, since almost all of those allowed into the country using CBP One are given parole once they arrive in the U.S. Michel has been here two months but hasn’t applied for asylum yet; he said “maybe next month” he would.

I call Biden’s parole programs “McVisas,” because they have all the benefits of a visa but none of the costs or controls. No fee. No medical check. No background check in their home country or others they have lived in. Applicants do need a sponsor in the U.S., but that person can be a nonresident alien or even another parolee.

Michel told me he had been living in Chile for five years, but it was expensive, so he went to Mexico and used CBP One to enter the U.S. He and the other Haitians flew into San Diego because that was where their sponsors were. These sponsors committed to the U.S. government that they would support their parolees, yet here they all were looking for work off the books. And if........

© The Daily Signal