Implementation of Keeping Families Together

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <DEPDOC>[CIS No. 2779-24; DHS Docket No. USCIS-2024-0010]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1615-ZC09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Implementation of Keeping Families Together</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of Homeland Security. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of implementation of the Keeping Families Together process. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This notice announces the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) implementation of the Keeping Families Together process for certain noncitizen spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens who are present in the United States without admission or parole to request parole in place under existing statutory authority. Granting parole in place, on a case-by-case basis, to eligible noncitizens under this process will achieve the significant public benefit of promoting the unity and stability of families, increasing the economic prosperity of American communities, strengthening diplomatic relationships with partner countries in the region, reducing strain on limited U.S. government resources, and furthering national security, public safety, and border security objectives. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> DHS will begin using the Form I-131F, Application for Parole in Place for Certain Noncitizen Spouses and Stepchildren of U.S. Citizens, for this process on August 19, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rená Cutlip-Mason, Chief, Humanitarian Affairs Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, by mail at 5900 Capital Gateway Drive, Camp Springs, MD 20746, or by phone at 800-375-5283. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Family unity is a bedrock objective of the U.S. immigration system. Nearly 60 years ago, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a foundation of modern U.S. immigration law, enshrined as a core principle the importance of promoting the ability of U.S. citizens to unify with their relatives—a principle that endures to this day. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Yet, amidst growing demands and challenges, including chronic underfunding of our immigration  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and visa processing backlogs compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, our immigration system has often been challenged in its ability to fully achieve this core principle. U.S. citizens and their noncitizen family members have in many cases faced lengthy processing backlogs and potential years-long separation to access immigration benefits intended by Congress to promote family unity. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Public Law 89-236 (1965). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  For example, in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 President's Budget, USCIS requested $865 million in appropriated funding, but Congress only provided $281 million. <E T="03">See</E> Department of Homeland Security U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2024 Congressional Justification, available at <E T="03">https://www.dhs.gov/sites//default/files//2023-03/U.S.%20CITIZENSHIP/%20AND%20IMMIGRATION%20SERVICES_Remediated.pdf</E> (last visited July 16, 2024); Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, div. C (2024); Department of Homeland Security U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Budget Overview, Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification, available at <E T="03">https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-04/2024_0325_us_citizenship_and_immigration_services.pdf</E> (last visited July 16, 2024). The February 2024 Bipartisan Border Agreement would have provided $20 billion in funding for border management, including $4 billion to USCIS. </FTNT> DHS estimates that there are approximately 765,000 noncitizens in the United States who are married to U.S. citizens and lack lawful immigration status. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Estimates indicate that the median time these noncitizens have been in the United States is 20 years, and they collectively live with more than 2.5 million U.S. citizen family members, raising and caring for more than 1.6 million U.S. citizen children. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> While U.S. immigration law provides noncitizens who are beneficiaries of approved immigrant visa petitions  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> filed by their U.S. citizen spouses the opportunity to apply for adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident (LPR) while remaining in the United States, there are certain requirements to adjust status that prevent many noncitizens from availing themselves of this benefit. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> In particular, to apply for LPR status while in the United States, an applicant generally must have been “inspected and admitted or paroled” into the United States. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  U.S. Dep't of Homeland Security, Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) analysis of OHSS Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: Jan. 2018-Jan. 2022 (“OHSS Analysis”), tbl. 3. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> tbls. 4, 5. Estimated data shows that the median amount of time the entire population of noncitizen spouses of U.S. citizens has been in the United States is 20 years; the median time the PIP-eligible population of noncitizen spouses of U.S. citizens (where the noncitizen spouses have been in the United States for at least 10 years) has been in the United States is 23 years. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  This is filed on Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  Adjustment of status is the process by which certain noncitizens may seek LPR status while remaining in the United States, as opposed to consular processing, the process by which certain noncitizens seek an immigrant visa at a United States embassy or consulate abroad and then are admitted to the United States as an LPR at a port of entry. <E T="03">See</E> INA sec. 245(a), 8 U.S.C. 1255(a); <E T="03">cf.</E> INA secs. 221-222, 8 U.S.C. 1201-1202 (immigrant visa applications). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  INA sec. 245(a), 8 U.S.C 1255(a). </FTNT> DHS estimates that more than two-thirds of noncitizens without lawful immigration status who are married to U.S. citizens  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> are present in the United States without admission or parole, and as a result, are generally not eligible for adjustment of status. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> They must therefore depart the United States and seek an immigrant visa at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. However, if they choose to depart the United States, they face uncertainty about whether they will be granted an immigrant visa and be able to return to the United States. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> The noncitizen also must remain abroad while waiting for their immigrant visa application to be processed at a U.S. embassy or consulate and any necessary waiver applications to be processed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and as a result, they may be separated from their U.S. citizen family members for months or years. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> The length and uncertainty of the process, along with the prospect of either separating from their U.S. citizen family members or uprooting them to travel abroad creates a disincentive and makes it difficult for noncitizens to pursue LPR status despite their eligibility to apply. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  OHSS Analysis, <E T="03">supra</E> note 3, tbl. 3. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  INA sec. 245(a), 8 U.S.C. 1255(a). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  For most of these noncitizens, their departure to pursue consular processing and seeking admission through the application of an immigrant visa makes them inadmissible, and seeking of admission through the application for an immigrant visa within three years from their departure (if they accrued more than 180 days but less than one year of unlawful presence in the United States during a single stay), or within ten years from their departure or removal (of departure or removal (if they accrued one year or more of unlawful presence in the United States during a single stay)), will make them inadmissible under INA section 212(a)(9)(B)(i), 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)(B)(i). <E T="03">See, e.g., Matter of Duarte-Gonzalez,</E> 28 I. & N. Dec. 688, 689-90 (BIA 2023); <E T="03">Matter of Rodarte-Roman,</E> 23 I. & N. Dec. 905, 908-10 (BIA 2006) (holding that the 3-year and 10-year unlawful presence bars are not triggered unless and until the noncitizen departs from the United States). This ground of inadmissibility may be waived, but approval of such a waiver is discretionary and requires applicants to “establish [ ] . . . that the refusal of [the applicant's] admission . . . would result in extreme hardship to the citizen or [LPR] spouse or parent” of the applicant. INA sec. 212(a)(9)(B)(v), 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)(B)(v). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  As discussed in greater detail in this notice, the provisional waiver process through the Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver, permits certain noncitizens to apply for a provisional waiver of the unlawful presence grounds of inadmissibility under INA section 212(a)(9)(B)(v), 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)(B)(v), prior to their departure from the United States. While an important mechanism, the Form I-601A provisional waiver process has become significantly backlogged in recent years, still requires the noncitizen to depart and remain separated from their U.S. citizen relatives during consular processing, and does not provide a guarantee that an immigrant visa will ultimately be granted. <E T="03">See</E> 8 CFR 212.7(e) (describing the provisional unlawful presence waiver process). </FTNT> Recognizing the harms that families and ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 258k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━