This week the Trump administration delayed Pres. Obama’s policy of offering humanitarian parole to foreign entrepreneurs to give them temporary legal status in the U.S. Historically this parole has only been used during a time of emergency.
Humanitarian parole allows the DHS secretary to admit foreigners into the U.S. for a “temporary period of time due to a compelling emergency,” such as to allow someone to undergo a life-saving medical treatment they can’t receive in their homeland or to testify in a court case.
Pres. Obama extended the use of this rarely used parole to offer legal status and work permits, with a potential chance at citizenship, to foreigners who were trying to build or invest in startup companies in the U.S. Obama officials predicted that under the rule around 3,000 entrepreneurs per year would be eligible for parole.
Last year Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, remarked that she feels Pres. Obama’s parole loosens up the parole’s criteria and is “basically creating a new category allowing people to stay.”
This delay comes just one week before the new policy was to take effect. The DHS department said they will delay the policy till March 2018 but would likely cancel it altogether.
“Those resources are otherwise needed for USCIS to effectively and efficiently carry out its many existing immigration benefit programs facilitating lawful migration into United States,” the department said.
Read more on this story at The Washington Times.
