Undocumented Immigrant. Section 245(A). Advance Parole. Marriage to US Citizen. Permanent Residency. Stephen Miller.
The story begins with a policy under Section 245 (A) of Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This policy details the rules under which an individual may adjust his/her current immigration status (whatever that may be) to that of a permanent resident (a green card holder). For rank-and-file cases with no deportation orders or criminal convictions, the rule states that an undocumented immigrant is able to receive a green card (permanent residency) while remaining in the United States if he/she marries a US citizen, granted he/she entered the United States legally (through a port of entry, checkpoint, airport, etc.).
Because of this statute, an individual who crossed the border at the age of 2 cradled in the arms of his mother, would not be able to receive permanent residency after marrying a US citizen without leaving the country. In other words, the undocumented immigrant from our example has to leave US to a country he has no ties with before his/her US spouse can even petition for a green card. The issue is that any individual with unlawful presence in the United States for more than 180 days triggers an automatic 10 year ban to reentry once he/she leaves the country.
Desperate to circumvent a horrendous situation of being stuck for a decade or more in a new country, undocumented immigrants leverage what many conservatives refer to as a loophole in Section 245 (A) act. Under this rule, adjustment of status may be approved for an individual who "was inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States" [emphasis added on purpose]. An individual, therefore, may still be eligible for adjustment of status if he/she leaves US after obtaining a travel permission document known as "advance parole." This document, though unavailable for vacation purposes, may be obtained for a vast variety of reasons including business, humanitarian, and educational. Many undocumented immigrants thus far had been able to adjust status through this clause.
Then enters Stephen Miller, Trump's trusted adviser on all immigration matters and perhaps the umbilical cord between the President and most anti-immigration portion of his base. It is well known that no immigration policy or action passes muster in Trump's administration without Miller's signature. It is Stephen Miller who proposed through Trump massive cuts to legal immigration via limitations on family based immigration clauses, elimination of lottery system for underrepresented countries, refusal to political asylum seekers from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvadore at port of entries, as well as rescission of DACA, to list just a few of many others.
In September of 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced at a press conference the administration's decision to end the DACA program. However, because of a nationwide injunction, federal courts prevented DACA's dismemberment. What the courts could not save was the "advance parole" clause attached with DACA. Till that point, DACA recipients were able to use this permission to travel abroad for educational purposes, business trips, humanitarian reasons (meeting parents for the first time in decades, etc.), as well as to parole back into the United States so their status could be adjusted while remaining in the US.
And this didn't sit well with Stephen Miller. Trump Administration removed advance parole clause from DACA, primarily to prevent a vast majorty of DACA recipients from adjusting status while remaining in the US if they chose to. There is still a strong minority of DACA recipients who came to US via a non-immigrant visa and overstayed. Section 245 (A) allows them to adjust their status since they were "admitted and inspected at the port of the entry" (like JFK, etc.).
The latest proposal offered by the Trump Administration to end the government shutdown included funding for the contentious border wall, in exchange of, as the administration simply puts, "one time 3-year extension of status of DACA and TPS recipients." Even at first glimpse, the opposing party rejected the plan, however, its underlining "poison-pills" pertaining to DACA were brought to light later by CATO Institute in an article published on January 22, 2019. In the tail end of the proposed Senate bill, which failed miserably to pass muster on January 24, 2019, on page 1252 of a 1301-pages tome, Mr. Miller adds the language pertaining to advance parole for DACA and TPS recipients, "trip described... shall not be considered an admission for the purposes of Section 245 (A)." That one sentence reveals the anti-immigrant sentiment roiling in the administration more than all the vile xenophobic rallies by our President.
And therein lies the rub.
The story begins with a policy under Section 245 (A) of Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This policy details the rules under which an individual may adjust his/her current immigration status (whatever that may be) to that of a permanent resident (a green card holder). For rank-and-file cases with no deportation orders or criminal convictions, the rule states that an undocumented immigrant is able to receive a green card (permanent residency) while remaining in the United States if he/she marries a US citizen, granted he/she entered the United States legally (through a port of entry, checkpoint, airport, etc.).
Because of this statute, an individual who crossed the border at the age of 2 cradled in the arms of his mother, would not be able to receive permanent residency after marrying a US citizen without leaving the country. In other words, the undocumented immigrant from our example has to leave US to a country he has no ties with before his/her US spouse can even petition for a green card. The issue is that any individual with unlawful presence in the United States for more than 180 days triggers an automatic 10 year ban to reentry once he/she leaves the country.
Desperate to circumvent a horrendous situation of being stuck for a decade or more in a new country, undocumented immigrants leverage what many conservatives refer to as a loophole in Section 245 (A) act. Under this rule, adjustment of status may be approved for an individual who "was inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States" [emphasis added on purpose]. An individual, therefore, may still be eligible for adjustment of status if he/she leaves US after obtaining a travel permission document known as "advance parole." This document, though unavailable for vacation purposes, may be obtained for a vast variety of reasons including business, humanitarian, and educational. Many undocumented immigrants thus far had been able to adjust status through this clause.
Then enters Stephen Miller, Trump's trusted adviser on all immigration matters and perhaps the umbilical cord between the President and most anti-immigration portion of his base. It is well known that no immigration policy or action passes muster in Trump's administration without Miller's signature. It is Stephen Miller who proposed through Trump massive cuts to legal immigration via limitations on family based immigration clauses, elimination of lottery system for underrepresented countries, refusal to political asylum seekers from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvadore at port of entries, as well as rescission of DACA, to list just a few of many others.
In September of 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced at a press conference the administration's decision to end the DACA program. However, because of a nationwide injunction, federal courts prevented DACA's dismemberment. What the courts could not save was the "advance parole" clause attached with DACA. Till that point, DACA recipients were able to use this permission to travel abroad for educational purposes, business trips, humanitarian reasons (meeting parents for the first time in decades, etc.), as well as to parole back into the United States so their status could be adjusted while remaining in the US.
And this didn't sit well with Stephen Miller. Trump Administration removed advance parole clause from DACA, primarily to prevent a vast majorty of DACA recipients from adjusting status while remaining in the US if they chose to. There is still a strong minority of DACA recipients who came to US via a non-immigrant visa and overstayed. Section 245 (A) allows them to adjust their status since they were "admitted and inspected at the port of the entry" (like JFK, etc.).
The latest proposal offered by the Trump Administration to end the government shutdown included funding for the contentious border wall, in exchange of, as the administration simply puts, "one time 3-year extension of status of DACA and TPS recipients." Even at first glimpse, the opposing party rejected the plan, however, its underlining "poison-pills" pertaining to DACA were brought to light later by CATO Institute in an article published on January 22, 2019. In the tail end of the proposed Senate bill, which failed miserably to pass muster on January 24, 2019, on page 1252 of a 1301-pages tome, Mr. Miller adds the language pertaining to advance parole for DACA and TPS recipients, "trip described... shall not be considered an admission for the purposes of Section 245 (A)." That one sentence reveals the anti-immigrant sentiment roiling in the administration more than all the vile xenophobic rallies by our President.
And therein lies the rub.
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