Closing a loophole he says was exposed by former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and President Joe Biden, a freshman congressman from North Carolina on Wednesday filed a proposal in the House of Representatives.
Immigration parole, says 31-year-old Rep. Addison McDowell, R-N.C., was intended for “individuals with an urgent humanitarian need or who offer a significant public benefit.” Those were case by case, he said.
Preventing the Abuse of Immigration Parole Act, a House resolution, would cap parolees at 3,000 per fiscal year starting in 2029. Without a waiver from the secretary of state, it would prohibit parole being extended to anyone coming to America from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba or Syria.
“Immigration parole is not a rubber stamp for open-border bureaucrats to grant entry into America by the millions,” McDowell said. “When you parole foreign nationals in waves with no real vetting, it undermines the purpose of the law and compromises our national security, putting American lives at risk. This bill restores common sense by capping parole and shutting out hostile regimes.”
McDowell said parole was granted by Mayorkas to more than 2.8 million people, “bypassing visa procedures, dodging background checks, and overwhelming American communities.”
That’s an average of 700,000 a year, or more than 23,000% higher than the bill allows.
More than 14 million people are believed to have illegally entered America in the four-year term of Biden. That includes an estimated 2 million evading capture. From January to April, with the Trump administration changes impacting analysis, border crossing encounters and apprehensions nationally are 168,390 – 83% less than the same four months a year ago and a pace for just over 2 million in four years.
In context, the first four months of the year had more in January and February than March and April, and the trend for fewer is expected to continue.
NumbersUSA and the Immigration Accountability Project are each on board with McDowell’s proposal.
“The Biden administration’s misuse of asylum and parole led to the largest border and immigration crisis in American history,” says a statement from NumbersUSA, an immigration reform advocacy group. “This legislation will prevent a future Biden-style immigration catastrophe by requiring aliens to be admitted on a case-by-case basis instead of en masse by the millions. The bill importantly caps the total number of aliens that can be paroled into the country at 3,000 annually.”
The Immigration Accountability Project has been around more than half a century, working on policy, politics and law. It professes to support the rule of law, serve national interests, and supports a secure border without illegal immigration. It called the Biden administration actions “unprecedented,” saying it operated “an alternative immigration system established by executive fiat.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chairwoman of the Rules Committee in the House, led a group of 10 cosponsoring the bill.
