President Barack Obama’s administration is unveiling a plan to allow illegal aliens who receive amnesty under the president’s planned executive action—and other aliens as well—to petition the government to bring family members from three Central American countries to the United States.
The plan, from the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), would allow aliens to bring family members from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador—the three countries at the center of this past summer’s border crisis—to America.
“The United States is establishing an in-country refugee/parole program in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to provide a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are currently undertaking to the United States,” the State Department said in a press release. Also:
This program will allow certain parents who are lawfully present in the United States to request access to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for their children still in one of these three countries. Children who are found ineligible for refugee admission but still at risk of harm may be considered for parole on a case-by-case basis. The refugee/parole program will not be a pathway for undocumented parents to bring their children to the United States, but instead, the program will provide certain vulnerable, at-risk children an opportunity to be reunited with parents lawfully resident in the United States.
The program, the State Department release laid out, will begin in December—likely after Obama’s planned executive immigration action takes place. According to reports from both Fox News and the New York Times, Obama is planning to amnesty as many as 5 million illegal aliens through an executive order as early as next week.
“Applications for this program are initiated in the United States,” the State Department wrote. Also:
Beginning in December 2014, a parent lawfully present in the United States will be able to file Department of State form DS-7699 requesting a refugee resettlement interview for unmarried children under 21 in El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras. Under certain circumstances, if the second parent resides with the child in the home country and is currently married to the lawfully present parent in the United States, the second parent may be added to the child’s petition and considered for refugee status, and if denied refugee status, for parole.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) ripped the new announcement in a press release on Friday afternoon, saying that it is a “government-sanctioned border surge.” Goodlatte adds:
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.
Goodlatte said that Obama’s actions are rewarding those who break this country’s laws:
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.
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