Biden Launches New Parole Program

On June 18, President Joe Biden announced a new program that will allow certain spouses of United States citizens to apply for the Department of Homeland Security’s “parole-in-place". This program will allow between 500,000 and 1.2 million illegal aliens who have been continuously present in the U.S. for ten years to receive work permits, apply for lawful permanent resident status (LPR), more commonly referred to as a green card, which will put them on a citizenship path. Under this process, approximately 50,000 noncitizen children of these spouses are estimated to be eligible to seek parole. Officially called Parole-in-Place for Certain Noncitizen Spouses and Stepchildren of U.S. Citizens, starting on August 19, illegal alien spouses can begin applying for the Biden-Harris Administration’s unlawful program, an amnesty by any other name.

The latest Biden-Harris scheme is another blatant Immigration and Nationality Act violation. Section 212(d)(5) of the INA permits certain aliens to enter on a case-by-case basis---i.e. be paroled---for urgent humanitarian needs and for brief time periods. Biden-Harris have consistently abused parole, granting it en masse to inadmissible illegal aliens and are now attempting to reward already present illegal aliens with legal status.

Under current law, illegal aliens married to U.S. citizens may apply for lawful permanent residence. However, they must first depart the U.S. and apply from abroad. The Department of Homeland Security, unsurprisingly, endorsed the program as “consistent with the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to keep families together.” On its website, DHS claimed that “these families live in fear and face deep uncertainty about their future.” The truth is, however, that spousal deportations are highly unlikely, “these families live in fear and face deep uncertainty about their future.” DHS has given illegal aliens a heads up to gather their paperwork in order to submit their parole-in-place documents on a timely basis. Applications will be accepted beginning August 19th.

But legislators who oppose parole-in place insist that not only has the Biden-Harris administration already abused parole, their newly proposed program will lead not only to work authorization and amnesty for illegal aliens who don’t deserve those rewards but will also create a new wave of marriage fraud. The lawmakers noted that "Since the criminal mechanisms for large scale marriage fraud for illegal aliens already exist, we are greatly concerned that the announced plans to parole certain aliens based on marriage status to American citizens will only exacerbate the current problem with detecting fraudulent marriages.”

Al Qaeda and Hezbollah members have used marriage fraud to allow their members to enter the U.S. under the guise of legitimacy. Last year, Alexei Saab, aka Ali Hassan Saab, 46, of Morristown, New Jersey was sentenced to 12 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for receiving military-type training from Hezbollah, committing marriage fraud, and making false statements, according to the Justice Department. The 9/11 Commission reported that several of the terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing were in the U.S. because they obtained legal status through marriage to an American citizen.

The 9/11 and Terrorist Travel report cited a U.S. Government intelligence analysis which found that Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002 and held in Guantanamo Bay, "some of the al Qaeda operatives married American women to obtain U.S. visas." The report also stated that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 9/11’s principal architect, "believed it [marriage fraud] was a fantastic mechanism for operatives to acquire valid documents." Marriage fraud also enabled the San Bernardino massacre perpetrated by Syed Farook, a citizen of Pakistani origins, and his Pakistani fiancée, Tashfeen Malik. The pair shot to death 14 and wounded 21 others while the victims were celebrating Christmas at a San Bernadino County employees’ party.

Count the ways that parole-in-place is another slap in the face to U.S. citizens. In no particular order, the program does nothing to stop the border hemorrhaging while, at the same time, sends another worldwide welcoming message to prospective border crossers, circumvents Congress, adds more prospective employees to a labor market already diluted with foreign-born workers, and heaps generous, taxpayer funded affirmative benefits like Social Security and Obamacare on illegal aliens not entitled to receive them. The Center for Immigration Studies Resident Fellow in Law and Policy and former immigration judge Arthur R. Andrew estimates that the Biden-Harris administration has paroled more than 1.5 million illegal aliens including Ukrainians, Afghans, Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans. Another grave danger to U.S. sovereignty: if Biden can make up his own immigration laws and put them into effect without congressional approval, nothing will stop him from creating more parole programs until every category of illegal immigrant will receive amnesty.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at [email protected]