Goodlatte: New Obama Administration Policy is a Government-Sanctioned Border Surge
Washington, D.C. – The State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that certain aliens – lawful permanent residents and those with temporary protected status, parole, withholding of removal, deferred action, and deferred enforced departure – will be able to petition for their unmarried children under the age of 21 and their current spouse (if they live with the child) to be considered for in-country refugee processing. If they do not meet the refugee requirements under the law, they can then be considered for parole into the United States, a tool that is, even according to the Administration itself, meant to be used sparingly on a case-by-case basis. To qualify, the alien’s family must be in Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued the statement below criticizing the Obama Administration’s new policy.
Chairman Goodlatte: “The policy announced by the Obama Administration today is simply a government-sanctioned border surge. Under this abusive new policy, unlawful immigrants in the United States, once they are granted executive amnesty by the President, can now rely on the Obama Administration to bring their child, and possibly their spouse, who are in Central America to our country. Rather than take the steps necessary to end the crisis at the border, the Obama Administration perpetuates it by abusing a legal tool meant to be used sparingly to bring people to the United States and instead applying it to the masses in Central America.
“President Obama continues to take actions that reward people for breaking our laws, which only encourage more to do the same. If President Obama moves forward with granting even more unlawful immigrants legal status, as he is expected to do as soon as next week, the policy announced today could open Pandora’s box, allowing potentially even more people to come to the United States. This is bad policy and undermines the integrity of our immigration system.”
According to the USCIS website, “humanitarian parole is used sparingly to bring someone who is otherwise inadmissible into the United States for a temporary period of time due to a compelling emergency.” Additionally, “USCIS may grant parole temporarily to anyone applying for admission into the United States based on urgent humanitarian reasons or if there is a significant public benefit” and “for a period of time that corresponds with the length of the emergency or humanitarian situation.”