EXCLUSIVE: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data is revealing the more than 50 cities in the U.S. that hundreds of thousands of migrants have flown into via a controversial parole program for four nationalities — with the vast majority entering the U.S. via airports in Florida.

During an eight-month period from January through August 2023, roughly 200,000 migrants flew into the U.S. via the program. Of those, 80% of them, (161,562) arrived in the state of Florida in four cities: Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa Bay, according to DHS data obtained via a subpoena by the House Homeland Security Committee and provided to Fox News.

The policy was first announced for Venezuelans in October 2022, which allowed a limited number to fly or travel directly into the U.S. as long as they had not entered illegally, had a sponsor in the U.S. already, and passed certain biometric and biographical vetting. The program does not itself facilitate flights, and migrants are responsible for their own travel.

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In January 2023, the administration announced that the program was expanding to include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans and that the program would allow up to 30,000 people per month into the U.S. It allows for migrants to receive work permits and a two-year authorization to live in the U.S. and was announced alongside an expansion of Title 42 expulsions to include those nationalities. By the end of February 2024, more than 400,000 nationals have arrived under the parole program, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently said the program is a “safe and orderly way to reach the United States” and has “led to a reduction in numbers of those nationalities.”

“It is a key element of our efforts to address the unprecedented level of migration throughout our hemisphere, and other countries around the world see it as a model to tackle the challenge of increased irregular migration that they too are experiencing,” Mayorkas said.

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The top 15 cities migrants flew into during the eight-month window are:

1) Miami, Florida: 91,821

2) Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: 60,461

3) New York City, New York: 14,827

4) Houston, Texas: 7,923

5) Orlando, Florida: 6,043

6) Los Angeles, California: 3,271

7) Tampa, Florida: 3,237

8) Dallas, Texas: 2,256

9) San Francisco, California: 2,052

10) Atlanta, Georgia: 1,796

11) Newark, New Jersey: 1,498

12) Washington, D.C.: 1,472

13) Chicago, Illinois: 496

14) Las Vegas, Nevada: 483

15) Austin, Texas: 171

DHS also revealed in the subpoena response that as of October 2023, there were about 1.6 million applicants waiting for DHS approval to fly to the U.S. via the parole program.

DHS said in its subpoena response, “All individuals paroled into the United States are, by definition, inadmissible, including those paroled under the CHNV processes.”

Representative Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024.  (Getty Images)

Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, argues that the program exceeds parole powers put in place by Congress. The authority is to be used on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

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“These documents expose the egregious lengths Secretary Mayorkas will go to ensure inadmissible aliens reach every corner of the country, from Orlando and Atlanta to Las Vegas and San Francisco,” he said in a statement. “Secretary Mayorkas’ CHNV parole program is an unlawful sleight of hand used to hide the worsening border crisis from the American people. Implementing a program that allows otherwise inadmissible aliens to fly directly into the U.S. — not for significant public benefit or urgent humanitarian reasons as the Immigration and Nationality Act mandates — has been proven an impeachable offense.” 

He then made reference to the House’s efforts to impeach Mayorkas. The chamber impeached him, but the Senate has not held a trial on the articles.

“Following our subpoena and the House’s impeachment vote — especially in light of the Senate’s complete failure to fulfill its duty to hold a trial — the Committee will not rest until this administration is finally held accountable for its open-borders agenda and its devastating impact on our homeland security,” he said.

Green’s arguments against the program have been echoed in a lawsuit by multiple states, who have sued to block the program. The 20 states argued that it “amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so.”

The lawsuit was struck down by a district judge, but states have appealed. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has repeatedly said it is confident the lawsuit will ultimately be successful.

“Biden’s parole program is unlawful, and constitutes an abuse of constitutional authority. Florida is currently suing Biden to shut it down, and we believe that we will prevail,” press secretary Jeremy Redfern told Fox News. 

DHS has said that those who enter the U.S. under the program undergo and clear a “robust security vetting” as well as other eligibility criteria. 

“These processes are publicly available online, and DHS has been providing regular updates on their use to the public. These processes are part of the administration’s strategy to combine expanded lawful pathways with stronger consequences to reduce irregular migration, and have kept hundreds of thousands of people from migrating irregularly,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital this month.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that he has qualified for California’s presidential election ballot, giving his third-party candidacy a long shot chance at collecting 54 electoral votes this fall.

If his spot on the ballot is certified by the California secretary of state, which could come in August, he would represent the American Independent Party. The secretary of state’s office confirmed to The Times that Kennedy’s candidacy had been submitted by the party.

The party has a controversial history dating back to 1968, when it nominated Alabama Gov. George Wallace as its candidate for president. He ran opposing desegregation and championing states’ rights. Kennedy’s father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), was assassinated in Los Angeles the night he won that year’s California presidential primary.

Kennedy says he has qualified for the ballot in California, Hawaii, Michigan and Utah. The political scion has been investing heavily and seeking alternate paths to the ballot since he opted out of running in the Democratic primary late last year. He recently selected California tech lawyer, entrepreneur and political newcomer Nicole Shanahan as his vice presidential running mate.

In a video statement released Tuesday, Kennedy said the AIP was “so impressed by this outpouring of democratic energy and vigor. … So they approached my campaign and offered us their spot on the California ballot. I see this story as a symbol of America’s homecoming .”

He added that he saw Wallace as a “bigot” who “was antithetical to everything my father believed in.”

In recent years, the American Independent Party has been a source of confusion for voters seeking to avoid registering as either a Republican or a Democrat. In California, voters may register as having no party preference, but The Times reported in 2016 that tens of thousands of voters had registered for AIP, many of them in error. Nearly three in four people did not realize they had joined the party, a survey of registered AIP voters conducted for The Times found.

The American Independent Party now exists only in California, but Wallace won 46 electoral votes nationally as its standard bearer in 1968, one of the most successful third-party runs in modern history.

The party now is not segregationist and in recent years officials told the Times that it “is a conservative, constitutionalist party.”

In the past its opposed abortion, and the 2024 March California primary voter guide said that AIP members “are all refugees from the Republican or Democrat parties. We believe the Constitution is the contract America has with itself. Its willful distortion led to the violation of our 10th Amendment guaranteed right to limited government — which inevitably requires oppressive taxation. Its faithful application will lift that burden.”

In a statement Tuesday, AIP state Chairman Victor Moroni said: “We all deserve to find inspiration at the ballot box. Our party is pleased to provide the opportunity for all 22 million voters in California to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President. Voters crave a real leader who will unite America.”

The move could have an impact on the presidential race in California, but not enough to change the expected outcome.

A March poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies and The Times found President Biden leading former President Trump by 18 percentage points statewide in a head-to-head matchup. That dropped to 12 points when independent and minor party candidates such as Kennedy were included.

In battleground states, Kennedy’s ability to qualify for the ballot could prove pivotal. In Michigan, like in California, Kennedy latched onto a smaller party — the Natural Law Party — that long held a ballot line. His success in these efforts appears to have led Trump to ratchet up his attacks on the Los Angeles resident. The former president said on social media over the weekend that Kennedy was “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat.”

In Michigan, recent polls have shown the race essentially tied between Trump and Biden with Kennedy a distant third. Polls in other battleground states show a tight contest but Trump in most cases leading.

Kennedy’s campaign has been on the receiving end of vicious attacks from Democrats who view him as a spoiler with extreme views that could result in another term for Trump. They point to his skepticism of certain vaccines. In a 2021 podcast, Kennedy told parents to “resist” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines on vaccinating their children.

Through the years he has repeatedly spread falsehoods about the effectiveness of vaccines, and more recently said the COVID-19 lockdowns were something a totalitarian state would do, likening them to Nazi Germany.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is filing an ethics complaint against special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday, accusing him of violating Department of Justice (DOJ) standards and trying to tip the election against former President Trump.

In a letter sent to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Stefanik urged the government watchdog to investigate Smith over accusations of “abusing the resources of the federal government to unlawfully interfere with the 2024 presidential election.”

“Jack Smith’s multiple attempts to rush to trial the federal January 6th case against President Trump violated long-standing, explicit Justice Department policy,” Stefanik wrote.

“Further, Jack Smith’s repeated violations of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s stay of proceedings are a lawless breach of trial ethics and lawyerly conduct. Jack Smith’s actions brought disrepute to the Justice Department and the federal government as a whole, and he should face discipline appropriately.”

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Smith’s case against Trump, stemming from accusations he tried to overturn the 2020 election, was supposed to go to trial in March but has been stuck in limbo as the Supreme Court weighs the ex-president’s claim he is immune to criminal prosecution for actions taken while in the White House.

The former U.S. attorney and human rights prosecutor petitioned the high court multiple times to reject Trump’s immunity claims and bid to delay his trial, including most recently on April 8.

Stefanik’s complaint accused him of first trying to influence the election in August 2023, when Smith petitioned for a Jan. 2, 2024 trial.

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Rep. Elise Stefanik accused special counsel Jack Smith of trying to influence the 2024 election against former President Trump. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, Pool)

“There exist approximately thirteen million pages of discovery for President Trump to review, plus thousands of hours of camera footage. Prosecutors bringing a case of this complexity — with so many consequential and novel legal issues to sort out — would normally never seek to bring it to trial within five months,” she argued. 

“The only reason to push for such an early trial date was to work to get the case tried before the November election, and the Justice Department Manual clearly forbids Jack Smith from taking any action on that basis.”

She also cited Smith’s petitions with the Supreme Court and used his own comments in court that no American is “above the law” as further argument that he should support an investigation into his conduct.

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“If that is true, then he should be open to, and welcome, an ethics investigation into conduct that, on its face, implicates potential violations of DOJ policy and multiple rules of professional conduct,” Stefanik said. “Biden special counsel Jack Smith’s highly unusual and clearly improper attempts to expedite trial, and his blatant violation of District Court orders, evidence his partisan attempt to influence the results of the 2024 presidential election.”

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, heard arguments in Trump’s immunity case last week. A final decision is expected in June — with the likelihood of a trial before the presidential election being slim.

Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ for comment.