This latest policy under consideration comes after the US Supreme Court ruled this week that pandemic-era restrictions, known as Title 42, must stay in place for what could be months as a legal battle over their future plays out.
Under Title 42, which was originally issued in March 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic under Republican former president Donald Trump, border agents can rapidly expel migrants to Mexico without giving them a chance to seek asylum.
Frosty diplomatic relations between the US and the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have complicated deportations to those countries.
Increasing numbers of migrants from those countries have arrived at the US-Mexico border seeking US asylum amid economic and political turmoil at home.
The new rules for Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians will be modelled on an existing programme for Venezuelans launched in October.
The programme allows up to 24,000 Venezuelans outside the US to apply to enter the country by air through “humanitarian parole” if they have US sponsors. Venezuelans arrested trying to cross border are generally returned to Mexico.
Mexico has only accepted the expulsion of some nationalities, mostly Mexicans and Central Americans, under Title 42. However, after Mexico agreed to accept back Venezuelans in October, their crossings dropped dramatically, with some giving up and returning home.
Two officials said the policy shift for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans could come as soon as this week. A third official said it could be applied to the first two groups this week and Nicaraguans at a later date.
No final decisions have been made, a fourth US official told Reuters. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Haiti has accepted deportees and migrants expelled under Title 42, but lawmakers and advocates have criticised the Biden administration for returning people while the country is going through political and economic turmoil.
Deportation, under a statute known as Title 8, is a more formal and drawn-out process that can lead to long bars on US re-entry as compared to expulsions that can take just hours under Title 42.
The US department of homeland security (DHS) and Mexican officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
US officials said Title 42 was originally put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has since said it is no longer needed for public health reasons. Immigrant advocates says it exposes vulnerable migrants to serious risks, like kidnapping or assault, in Mexican border towns.
‘Humanitarian parole’
US president Joe Biden, a Democrat, has struggled with unprecedented levels of migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border since taking office in January 2021, fueling criticism from Republicans and some members of his own party who say his policies are too lax.
US Border Patrol agents apprehended a record 2.2 million migrants at the southwest border in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended Sept 30.
Close to half of those arrested were rapidly expelled under the Title 42 policy.
Under the new Venezuelan parole programme, more than 14,000 Venezuelans had been vetted and received approval to travel to the US and more than 5,900 had already arrived lawfully as of Nov 30, according to DHS.
Following the launch of the Venezuelan programme, the number of Venezuelans caught crossing into the US illegally fell nearly 70% from about 21,000 encounters in October to 6,200 in November, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data released last week.
Cuban and Nicaraguan crossings increased 38% during that same period with about 68,000 migrants entering the country in November, up from 49,000 a month earlier.
Few Haitians have been caught crossing the US-Mexico border in recent months as thousands have been allowed to request humanitarian entry at US ports of entry.
In a border management plan released earlier this month, the agency said it intended to build on the model presented by the Venezuelan programme.
The parole programme for Venezuelans was similar to one created following Russia’s Feb 24 invasion of Ukraine that allows Ukrainians with US sponsors to enter and temporarily stay in the US by applying from outside the country.