Is Biden’s New Parole Plan Keeping Families Together or Just Another Immigration Scam?: The BorderLine

Simon Hankinson

5 hours ago

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a press conference alongside President Joe Biden

In June, I wrote about “parole in place” for alien spouses when the Biden administration first announced this latest in its series of gimmicks that I call Parole-a-Palooza. Now, it’s here.

First, a little background. Prevented by pesky laws from admitting all the legal and illegal immigrants he wants, since 2021, President Joe Biden has circumvented the law by stretching beyond the breaking point a limited power to “parole” illegal aliens into the U.S. The Immigration and Nationality Act clearly says parole should be temporary, for “urgent humanitarian reasons or for significant public benefit” of Americans, and decided on a “case-by-case basis.”

But the Biden administration considers it a blank check for whole nations, including Afghans, Ukrainians, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, and other selected nationalities to enter the U.S. and receive work authorizations instead of going through the statutory visa process at the U.S. embassies in their home countries.

Because Biden’s parole programs essentially launder illegal immigrants into the country, they need passive euphemisms to deceive the public. Parole-in-place is called “Keeping Families Together”—because who wants to argue against that? On Aug. 20, the Department of Homeland Security officially started accepting applications.

Keeping Families Together is open to illegal aliens who have been married to U.S. citizens for at least 10 years. Qualifying spouses and children will get to stay in parole status while their immigration cases work their way through the system. DHS estimates that about half a million people would be eligible.

A 93-page implementation notice explains how it works. There is a $580 fee and “background check” to show that the alien isn’t “a threat to national security or public safety.” What if they are, you ask? If they applied overseas, as the law requires, then they’d stay abroad unless they could obtain a waiver. But if they apply for parole from within the U.S. and it turns out they are a threat, DHS has to take them into custody and remove them, which rarely happens.

The current blowout abuse of parole was foreseen long ago.

In the 1990s, it was increasingly obvious to Congress that U.S. immigration policy needed reform. A 1996 House of Representatives report concluded that “unlimited immigration … is a moral and practical impossibility” and that, therefore, “the United States must exercise its national sovereignty to control its borders and pursue an immigration policy that serves the fundamental needs of the nation.” The report added that “the parole authority was intended to be used on a case-by-case basis to meet specific needs and not as a supplement to congressionally established immigration policy.”

In 1994, Congress created the bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by Barbara Jordan, a former Democratic congresswoman from Texas. In an interim report, the commission said that “if unlawful aliens believe that they can remain indefinitely once they are within our national borders, there will be increased incentives to try to enter or remain illegally.” It was right.

In 1997, the commission’s final report recommended that “parole should be used only in exceptional circumstances, and that Congress should be involved more directly in decisions to parole large numbers of individuals for permanent residence.” Again, nailed it.

Influenced by these reports and a bipartisan consensus that something had to be done, Congress amended the law to make it harder for migrants to enter and live in the U.S. illegally with impunity. One penalty, which took effect in April 1997, is that foreigners who stay in the U.S. illegally for more than six months but less than a year aren’t allowed to return for three years. Those who stay here illegally longer than 12 months aren’t allowed to return for 10 years. These were measures to prevent illegal aliens from being allowed to break the law but still get every benefit legal immigrants get.

Today, the Biden administration calls these congressionally mandated and reasonable time-bars on reentry for being illegal present “flaws in the U.S. immigration system.” To The Washington Post, they are “bureaucratic hurdles.” Kelli Stump, the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, calls them “an arduous bureaucratic process.” And Biden’s director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ur Jaddou, labels them “undue barriers.”

But here’s how they actually work. Let’s say a man from Italy had lived here illegally for more than a year and he was married to an American citizen. If his wife asked for an immigrant visa for him, he would have to return to Italy and apply at the U.S. Embassy in Rome for that visa. During his application, his illegal time in the U.S. would trigger the 10-year bar and he would be denied the visa until that period was up.

But that’s rarely the end of the story, since for nearly every immigration penalty, there is a waiver. The hypothetical Italian can apply for a waiver from Citizenship and Immigration Services. Provided he had no criminal record and that his American citizen wife can show there would be “extreme hardship” for her if he were to be kept out, he would probably get approved. I saw many of these waivers applied for in my career as a consular officer, and they were rarely denied. Yes, they took some time to process and cost a few bucks, but that’s a small price to pay to overcome months or years of living in a country without permission.

Under Biden’s new spousal parole-in-place program, beneficiaries will be able to avoid the three- and 10-year time penalties and having to get a waiver.

To meet the legal justification for this latest parole program, DHS claims it will achieve a “significant public benefit” by “strengthening diplomatic relationships with partner countries in the region; reducing strain on limited U.S. government resources; and furthering national security, public safety, and border security objectives.”

Surely, the law’s drafters were looking for more specific benefits than those vague criteria, which could be argued for almost any case.

American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Stump wants the government to “expand the scope of this program and identify other lawful pathways that will strengthen American families, our communities, and our nation’s economy.” In other words, she wants Biden to create executive prerogatives out of thin air that bypass laws Congress passed to regulate immigration—which is its constitutional prerogative.

“We do not want you to become the victim of an immigration scam,” says DHS’ parole-in-place program announcement. But the real scam—on both legal immigrants and U.S. citizens alike—is using immigration parole once again to go around a visa process that’s meant to maintain a fair and orderly immigration system that actually benefits the country.

Apparently, such a scam is fine, as long as the scam is perpetrated by the government itself.

The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues such as human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.