Parole power remains a bar to border deal

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is closing in on a Senate deal on border security and Ukraine funding as the White House tries to resolve one of the last sticking points: whether to preserve the president’s authority to allow migrants into the U.S. for special cases during emergencies or global unrest.

Republicans deride the authority, known as humanitarian parole, as a Biden administration end run around Congress that allows into the U.S. large numbers of migrants who further tax an already overextended immigration system.

But that power to allow in certain immigrants at certain times is not new. It has been used across political lines for decades to admit people from Hungary in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1970s and Iraqi Kurds over the 1990s.

“The parole gave me this opportunity, it has made me realize my dreams, my life,” said Emilia Ferrer Triay, who came from Cuba in 1980 as a girl. “Everything changed from the first day I arrived, I saw that I had a future … that there were no restrictions.”

Ferrer was plucked from the Atlantic Ocean between Key West, Florida, and Cuba, with her uncles and younger brother who had been trying to reach the U.S. via fishing boat. They were part of an influx of more than 125,000 Cubans who traveled from Cuba’s Mariel Harbor to the United States that year.

Ferrer, now 57, said that since the beginning, she had the opportunity to go to school and learn English, then went to college. She works full time, and is married with three U.s.born children. She became a citizen herself eight years after arriving.

“I would be very unhappy if I had to stay in Cuba,” she said. “You have no future, you can’t dream.”

Republican senators have refused to approve any further aid for Ukraine or Israel without U.S. border policy changes. The talks have been drawn out for weeks, but both sides say they are nearing a deal and the Senate could consider the legislation this week.

Biden told reporters Thursday, “I don’t think we have any sticking points left.”

“I think they’re definitely closing in on parole language issue that has to be addressed,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said at the Capitol on Thursday. “And in a way that limits the abuse the authority.”

In recent days, negotiators have discussed compromises, including capping the number of migrants eligible for parole, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.