Doctors’ plight signals new ‘rigid’ enforcement
Agents seen as less likely to weigh individual cases after Trump memo
The near removal of two Houston physicians to India this week indicates immigration officials are being hesitant to use discretion, perhaps defaulting to a blanket policy against granting exceptions in unusual cases, a practice lawyers worry might increase under President Donald Trump’s enforcement policy.
In memos issued in February, the Trump administration instructed immigration officials to reform a broad program known as parole that gives officials some flexibility in dealing with cases that aren’t clear cut, where immigrants who technically aren’t supposed to enter or leave the U.S. are allowed to due to some compelling reason. It directed the practice be used “sparingly.”
Michael Neifach, a lawyer who held senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security during the George W. Bush administration, said it’s unclear how the government might change the program, which it claims is being abused.
In the meantime, without clear guidelines, federal agents might be less likely to consider individual cases
on their merits and instead adopt a black-and-white position.
“There’s a concern that the desire to be more enforcement oriented is taken as ‘never give it,’ ” Neifach said. “It could lead to a broad-based, ‘no one wants to make a decision favoring parole and so our default is we’re going to deny it’ attitude.”
The impact of that, he added, would be “the fire drill you saw yesterday,” when immigrants like Drs. Pankaj Satija and Monika Ummat, who have permission to stay, are forced to leave out of a rigid interpretation of the law without consideration of the circumstances.
The policy of parole has been used to permit Cubans to stay in the country after reaching American soil, though former President Barack Obama ended that practice in January. Some Central American children and Haitians also have been allowed to come here through the program. But it’s probably most widely used by immigrants who are waiting on their green cards and need to travel abroad while their applications are processing, as was the case for Satija and Ummat.
‘More conservative approach’
The couple, who have been here legally for more than a decade and applied for their green cards in 2008, had to return suddenly to India last year after Satija’s father was hospitalized. Confused by a conflicting date on their paperwork from another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, they did not realize that their advanced parole permission required to travel had expired.
Customs and Border Protection officials agents allowed them back in to the U.S. through deferred inspection, a type of discretion that permits certain travelers without the correct paperwork to enter the country so that they can fix the error. The Satijas immediately applied to renew their advanced parole so that their reentry to the U.S. would be considered legal. In the meantime, they checked in every month as required with CBP, who extended their permission to stay each time.
On Wednesday, however, they were told that the agency suddenly had a new policy and would no longer renew that authorization. They were told they had to leave the country in 24 hours, even though they had been approved for their advanced parole but didn’t yet have the paperwork.
“Somebody up there has decided,” the CBP agent told them.
That launched a dizzying day of calling legislators and taking their case to the media, where it instantly went viral. By Thursday night, a CBP officer told them they had been given three months of humanitarian parole, a measure allowing immigrants who are otherwise not permitted to enter the country the opportunity to do so because of a “compelling emergency,” enabling them to sort out their paperwork.
“In this case, it eventually worked out,” said Angelique Montano, an attorney with Quan Law Group who helped secure the couple’s reprieve Thursday. “But with this administration, there does seem to be a more conservative approach for the use of parole or discretion.”
Three areas of parole
There are three broad areas of parole, and in its most drastic action, the Trump administration could severely restrict or cut two of them, said Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C.
The first effectively grants discretion to people from certain categories, such as certain Filipino World War II veterans and their spouses who can apply for their family to come here, or immediate relatives of U.S. service members who are here illegally but can receive green cards without having to leave the country.
The second, known as advanced parole, applies to people who are in the United States and need to leave without imperiling their immigrant status, such as the Satijas. People who are waiting for their green cards normally cannot leave the country or their applications are dismissed.
But because of rules limiting how many immigrants actually can receive permanent residency each year and a tremendous backlog in the overwhelmed system, some immigrants wait decades to receive their green cards even after they have been approved. Many of them need to travel out of necessity during this period, so they often receive advanced parole allowing them to do so.
The third category is the type of parole the Satijas were finally granted this week, which is rare and allows immigrants to come here or leave because of a significant public interest or another crucial reason. The Satijas are both neurologists who had patients waiting for surgery or other critical treatment, which was cited as the reason they were granted parole Thursday.
The Trump administration doesn’t appear to like the idea that there are special classes of people who almost automatically get what it thinks should be an unusual exception, Pierce said.
If it cuts or reduces the first two types of categories, it would create “major problems for a lot of people,” she said.
Supported by reform group
Groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform who push for reduced immigration and whose policy recommendations have often been adopted by Trump, however, advocate for exactly that: to repeal advanced parole and limit the general practice to the narrowlydefined “humanitarian parole” on a strict case-by-case basis.
It appears the intent is to turn parole from an exception that certain people can rely on to an extremely infrequent privilege. But until the agencies release regulations, how that manifests won’t be clear.
Gillian Christensen, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said she had no new information on the guidelines or when they might be issued.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Montano, the attorney for the Satijas. “The government itself is still working things out and it’s trickling down to agencies and officers who are dealing with things on an individual basis.”
Neifach, the former DHS official, said he hoped the Trump administration realizes that use of parole is necessary in a rigid system where the messiness of real lives often don’t fall into neat boxes.
“Parameters could be interpreted on the ground in a reasonable way and still have it done on a true case-by-case basis,” he said.