The Trump administration is cutting off an Obama-era pathway to the United States for young migrants fleeing violence in Central America, further narrowing the options for thousands of people hoping to seek refuge here as the White House moves to tighten immigration rules.

As of Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security is ending a program begun in 2014 that gave some children and young adults who had failed to qualify for refugee status permission to enter the United States to live and work on a temporary basis, known as parole.

The agency said it was doing so in response to President Trump’s January executive order on immigration, which directed officials to exercise much more selectively their authority to admit immigrants outside normal legal channels. The Trump administration has also tried to hold back the high tide of young Central American migrants by intensifying immigration enforcement within the country and even seeking out their parents who are in the United States illegally, and arresting them.

“Parole will only be issued on a case-by-case basis and only where the applicant demonstrates an urgent humanitarian or a significant public benefit reason for parole and that applicant merits a favorable exercise of discretion,” the department said in its announcement, which is to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday. “Any alien may request parole to travel to the United States, but an alien does not have a right to parole.”