I
118THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 2453
To amend section 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to
reform immigration parole, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH30, 2023
Mr. T
IFFANYintroduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend section 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nation-
ality Act to reform immigration parole, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Immigration Parole 4
Reform Act of 2023’’. 5
SEC. 2. IMMIGRATION PAROLE REFORM. 6
Section 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality 7
Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(5)) is amended to read as follows: 8
‘‘(5)(A) Except as provided in subparagraphs 9
(B) and (C) and section 214(f), the Secretary of 10
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Homeland Security, in the discretion of the Sec-1
retary, may temporarily parole into the United 2
States any alien applying for admission to the 3
United States who is not present in the United 4
States, under such conditions as the Secretary may 5
prescribe, on a case-by-case basis, and not according 6
to eligibility criteria describing an entire class of po-7
tential parole recipients, for urgent humanitarian 8
reasons or significant public benefit. Parole granted 9
under this subparagraph may not be regarded as an 10
admission of the alien. When the purposes of such 11
parole have been served in the opinion of the Sec-12
retary, the alien shall immediately return or be re-13
turned to the custody from which the alien was pa-14
roled. After such return, the case of the alien shall 15
be dealt with in the same manner as the case of any 16
other applicant for admission to the United States. 17
‘‘(B) The Secretary of Homeland Security may 18
grant parole to any alien who— 19
‘‘(i) is present in the United States without 20
lawful immigration status; 21
‘‘(ii) is the beneficiary of an approved peti-22
tion under section 203(a); 23
‘‘(iii) is not otherwise inadmissible or re-24
movable; and 25
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‘‘(iv) is the spouse or child of a member of 1
the Armed Forces serving on active duty. 2
‘‘(C) The Secretary of Homeland Security may 3
grant parole to any alien— 4
‘‘(i) who is a national of the Republic of 5
Cuba and is living in the Republic of Cuba; 6
‘‘(ii) who is the beneficiary of an approved 7
petition under section 203(a); 8
‘‘(iii) for whom an immigrant visa is not 9
immediately available; 10
‘‘(iv) who meets all eligibility requirements 11
for an immigrant visa; 12
‘‘(v) who is not otherwise inadmissible; and 13
‘‘(vi) who is receiving a grant of parole in 14
furtherance of the commitment of the United 15
States to the minimum level of annual legal mi-16
gration of Cuban nationals to the United States 17
specified in the U.S.-Cuba Joint Communique´ 18
on Migration, done at New York September 9, 19
1994, and reaffirmed in the Cuba-United 20
States: Joint Statement on Normalization of 21
Migration, Building on the Agreement of Sep-22
tember 9, 1994, done at New York May 2, 23
1995. 24
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‘‘(D) The Secretary of Homeland Security may 1
grant parole to an alien who is returned to a contig-2
uous country under section 235(b)(2)(C) to allow 3
the alien to attend the alien’s immigration hearing. 4
The grant of parole shall not exceed the time re-5
quired for the alien to be escorted to, and attend, 6
the alien’s immigration hearing scheduled on the 7
same calendar day as the grant, and to immediately 8
thereafter be escorted back to the contiguous coun-9
try. A grant of parole under this subparagraph shall 10
not be considered for purposes of determining 11
whether the alien is inadmissible under this Act. 12
‘‘(E) For purposes of determining an alien’s eli-13
gibility for parole under subparagraph (A), an ur-14
gent humanitarian reason shall be limited to cir-15
cumstances in which the alien establishes that— 16
‘‘(i)(I) the alien has a medical emergency; 17
and 18
‘‘(II)(aa) the alien cannot obtain necessary 19
treatment in the foreign state in which the alien 20
is residing; or 21
‘‘(bb) the medical emergency is life-threat-22
ening and there is insufficient time for the alien 23
to be admitted through the normal visa process; 24
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‘‘(ii) the alien is the parent or legal guard-1
ian of an alien described in clause (i) and the 2
alien described in clause (i) is a minor; 3
‘‘(iii) the alien is needed in the United 4
States in order to donate an organ or other tis-5
sue for transplant and there is insufficient time 6
for the alien to be admitted through the normal 7
visa process; 8
‘‘(iv) the alien has a close family member 9
in the United States whose death is imminent 10
and the alien could not arrive in the United 11
States in time to see such family member alive 12
if the alien were to be admitted through the 13
normal visa process; 14
‘‘(v) the alien is seeking to attend the fu-15
neral of a close family member and the alien 16
could not arrive in the United States in time to 17
attend such funeral if the alien were to be ad-18
mitted through the normal visa process; 19
‘‘(vi) the alien is an adopted child with an 20
urgent medical condition who is in the legal 21
custody of the petitioner for a final adoption-re-22
lated visa and whose medical treatment is re-23
quired before the expected award of a final 24
adoption-related visa; or 25
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‘‘(vii) the alien is a lawful applicant for ad-1
justment of status under section 245 and is re-2
turning to the United States after temporary 3
travel abroad. 4
‘‘(F) For purposes of determining an alien’s eli-5
gibility for parole under subparagraph (A), a signifi-6
cant public benefit may be determined to result from 7
the parole of an alien only if— 8
‘‘(i) the alien has assisted (or will assist, 9
whether knowingly or not) the United States 10
Government in a law enforcement matter; 11
‘‘(ii) the alien’s presence is required by the 12
Government in furtherance of such law enforce-13
ment matter; and 14
‘‘(iii) the alien is inadmissible, does not 15
satisfy the eligibility requirements for admission 16
as a nonimmigrant, or there is insufficient time 17
for the alien to be admitted through the normal 18
visa process. 19
‘‘(G) For purposes of determining an alien’s eli-20
gibility for parole under subparagraph (A), the term 21
‘case-by-case basis’ means that the facts in each in-22
dividual case are considered and parole is not grant-23
ed based on membership in a defined class of aliens 24
to be granted parole. The fact that aliens are consid-25
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ered for or granted parole one-by-one and not as a 1
group is not sufficient to establish that the parole 2
decision is made on a ‘case-by-case basis’. 3
‘‘(H) The Secretary of Homeland Security may 4
not use the parole authority under this paragraph to 5
parole an alien into the United States for any reason 6
or purpose other than those described in subpara-7
graphs (B), (C), (D), (E), and (F). 8
‘‘(I) An alien granted parole may not accept 9
employment, except that an alien granted parole 10
pursuant to subparagraph (B) or (C) is authorized 11
to accept employment for the duration of the parole, 12
as evidenced by an employment authorization docu-13
ment issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security. 14
‘‘(J) Parole granted after a departure from the 15
United States shall not be regarded as an admission 16
of the alien. An alien granted parole, whether as an 17
initial grant of parole or parole upon reentry into 18
the United States, is not eligible to adjust status to 19
lawful permanent residence or for any other immi-20
gration benefit if the immigration status the alien 21
had at the time of departure did not authorize the 22
alien to adjust status or to be eligible for such ben-23
efit. 24
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‘‘(K)(i) Except as provided in clauses (ii) and 1
(iii), parole shall be granted to an alien under this 2
paragraph for the shorter of— 3
‘‘(I) a period of sufficient length to accom-4
plish the activity described in subparagraph 5
(D), (E), or (F) for which the alien was grant-6
ed parole; or 7
‘‘(II) 1 year. 8
‘‘(ii) Grants of parole pursuant to subparagraph 9
(A) may be extended once, in the discretion of the 10
Secretary, for an additional period that is the short-11
er of— 12
‘‘(I) the period that is necessary to accom-13
plish the activity described in subparagraph (E) 14
or (F) for which the alien was granted parole; 15
or 16
‘‘(II) 1 year. 17
‘‘(iii) Aliens who have a pending application to 18
adjust status to permanent residence under section 19
245 may request extensions of parole under this 20
paragraph, in 1-year increments, until the applica-21
tion for adjustment has been adjudicated. Such pa-22
role shall terminate immediately upon the denial of 23
such adjustment application. 24
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‘‘(L) Not later than 90 days after the last day 1
of each fiscal year, the Secretary of Homeland Secu-2
rity shall submit to the Committee on the Judiciary 3
of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary 4
of the House of Representatives and make available 5
to the public, a report— 6
‘‘(i) identifying the total number of aliens 7
paroled into the United States under this para-8
graph during the previous fiscal year; and 9
‘‘(ii) containing information and data re-10
garding all aliens paroled during such fiscal 11
year, including— 12
‘‘(I) the duration of parole; 13
‘‘(II) the type of parole; and 14
‘‘(III) the current status of the aliens 15
so paroled.’’. 16
SEC. 3. IMPLEMENTATION. 17
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Except as provided in subsection 18
(b), this Act and the amendments made by this Act shall 19
take effect on the date that is 30 days after the date of 20
the enactment of this Act. 21
(b) E
XCEPTIONS.—Notwithstanding subsection (a), 22
each of the following exceptions apply: 23
(1) Any application for parole or advance parole 24
filed by an alien before the date of the enactment of 25
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this Act shall be adjudicated under the law that was 1
in effect on the date on which the application was 2
properly filed and any approved advance parole shall 3
remain valid under the law that was in effect on the 4
date on which the advance parole was approved. 5
(2) Section 212(d)(5)(J) of the Immigration 6
and Nationality Act, as added by section 2, shall 7
take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act. 8
(3) Aliens who were paroled into the United 9
States pursuant to section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Im-10
migration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 11
1182(d)(5)(A)) before January 1, 2023, shall con-12
tinue to be subject to the terms of parole that were 13
in effect on the date on which their respective parole 14
was approved. 15
SEC. 4. CAUSE OF ACTION. 16
Any person, State, or local government that experi-17
ences financial harm in excess of $1,000 due to a failure 18
of the Federal Government to lawfully apply the provisions 19
of this Act or the amendments made by this Act shall have 20
standing to bring a civil action against the Federal Gov-21
ernment in an appropriate district court of the United 22
States for appropriate relief. 23
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SEC. 5. SEVERABILITY. 1
If any provision of this Act or any amendment by 2
this Act, or the application of such provision or amend-3
ment to any person or circumstance, is held to be uncon-4
stitutional, the remainder of this Act and the application 5
of such provision or amendment to any other person or 6
circumstance shall not be affected. 7
Æ
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