USCIS confirmed that 2,994 DACA recipients have been approved for “adjustment of status” allowing them to receive green cards through the advanced parole program. The admission came in response to a letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) earlier this year. The letter also states that 22,340 DACA individuals have been approved for the parole program as of December 31, 2015 and 5,068 of those have also applied for adjustment of status.
This contradicts Pres. Obama’s promise that DACA recipients would not be eligible for citizenship. “Now let us be clear. This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship,” Pres. Obama said when he announced the DACA program in 2012.
When an illegal alien is granted advance parole they can leave the U.S. for a short time and when they return they are put on a fast track to citizenship. The statute was originally only reserved for “urgent humanitarian reasons” but the Obama Administration circumvented the usual rulemaking process to expand the grounds of approval for advance parole to include educational, employment, or humanitarian purposes.
This means a DACA recipient can apply and receive advance parole then take a semester abroad or claim they have an interview, conference, or training overseas and upon their return will be paroled back into the U.S. and is thereby eligible to adjust to legal permanent resident status. The person can then receive full citizenship after five years.
DHS did not expand the grounds for advance parole through a rulemaking that was subject to public notice and comment. Instead the agency published in early February 2016- a new version of the I-131 Travel Document that detailed the grounds and explained how DACA recipients can apply.
Read more on this story at FAIR.org.
