US Handing Out ‘Very Boutique’ Status to Thousands of Migrants While Still in Mexico

A Mexican immigration official waits as migrants with U.S.-approved parole authority load into his van ready to cross into the United States via a port of entry. Courtesy of Todd Bensman/Center for Immigration Studies

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials are approving the entry of thousands of likely illegal aliens while they’re still in Mexico, according to a new report.

For months now, CBP officials have shepherded in thousands of aliens who have submitted an application for temporary parole status, using a new online platform called CBP-ONE, according to a report by Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

Bensman visited three immigration shelters in Mexico that help select migrants for the program and help them obtain the requisite paperwork—often assisted by teams of U.S. legal students, psychologists, activists, and the U.N. International Organization for Migration.

To be accepted, the migrants require “just the right documented story of woe, a psychologist attesting to suffered traumas and fear of returning home, proof of citizenship and identity, a clear criminal background, need for urgent free American medical treatment, and a sponsor in the U.S. willing to financially support the applicant,” according to the report.

The authority under which these aliens are gaining entry is through a humanitarian parole exemption that The Epoch Times exclusively wrote about in May. Under the parole authority, tens of thousands of illegal aliens are being quickly released each month by Border Patrol after crossing the border illegally.

Under parole, the aliens are given work authorization for one year and often a cell phone to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Two Nicaraguan nationals hold up the cell phones they received from Border Patrol before being released into the United States, in Kinney County, Texas, on April 29, 2022. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

A spokesperson for CBP previously told The Epoch Times that parole has been used to speed up the processing of illegal aliens at overwhelmed Border Patrol stations.

“One thing you can do is you can parole somebody who is coming into the United States as an arriving alien, and you can parole them for a year, so that they can take care of whatever humanitarian issue or whatever issue that they have to deal with,” the spokesperson said.

Now, the same process is being undertaken south of the border.

Bensman called it “a highly unconventional idea far outside mainstream border management.”

What Is Parole?

Through the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), Congress mandated that all inadmissible and illegal aliens be detained until their status is determined, after which they’re either deported or granted entry with a legal status.

Parole is an exception and, although it’s not a legal status, it permits entry on “a case-by-case basis” for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” according to the INA.

The status allows foreign nationals “who may not otherwise be admissible to the country under the immigration laws” to live and work in the United States temporarily “without being formally admitted to the country and without having a set pathway to a permanent immigration status,” according to a 2020 Congressional Research Service report.

Andrew Arthur, CIS resident fellow in law and policy and a retired immigration judge, said in a previous interview that parole should be a “very, very boutique thing.”

It should be used, for example, when a family member needs entry into the United States to donate a kidney to his brother or if a witness to a criminal case is needed to testify, Arthur said. As associate general counsel in the former federal immigration agency, he said he would see a handful of parole cases each year.

The Department of Homeland Security granted parole to 24,000 Venezuelans in October.

One man who Bensman encountered in Mexicali had a doctor at the shelter attest to his need for medical treatment for lung cancer. The man was approved to travel into the United States under parole authority for free cancer treatment the next day, Bensman said in his report.

“If applicants claim they’re fleeing danger, university law professors and students help them file police reports over the phone to home countries after the fact, then get the police reports sent back as ‘evidence,’ three shelter managers confirmed,” he said.

Under this new parole program south of the border, he said it’s impossible to estimate how many aliens had been processed in Mexico and brought to the United States because the process is almost “invisible,” but all the shelters he knows of are “swamped and expanding.”

The parole being used on the U.S. side of the border also has been ramping up.

During fiscal year 2022, which ended on Sept. 30, Border Patrol processed and released more than 378,000 illegal aliens under the Biden administration’s new “Parole+ATD” category, according to CBP data. ATD is an Alternatives to Detention program, which is acting as a workaround of the legal requirement to detain illegal aliens.

In October, another 68,837 were released under parole and an additional 20,500 were released with an immigration court date.

By adding the parole system, Bensman said the United States is enticing more people to come.

“And I think that’s the policy question. How many are you going to let in? There’s 700 million people in the world living in extreme poverty. Will we stop when all of them are in?” he told The Epoch Times.

In Mexico

Bensman relayed a conversation he had with a Mexicali city official, Aaron Gomez, who said he was tapped to run the Mexican side of the operation partnered with Calexico, California.

“They needed to open a new entrance right here, and they needed someone to run it,” Gomez told Bensman. “It was a favor the Americans asked for with this program.”

Gomez said U.S. officials told them, “They’re going to cross either way. This will keep them from getting hurt.”

Between Sept. 9 and Nov. 3, Gomez said he’s sent more than 1,150 parolees into Calexico, and the program is ramping up. Many are Mexican nationals, as well as those from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and other nations.

The Mexicali city shelter system—currently holding 3,000 migrants—is full, and the city is building an expansion to triple its capacity.

Bensman said the program is operating south of San Diego and Calexico in California, Douglas in Arizona, and El Paso, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville in Texas.

“Mexico also appears to have set up operations well south of the American border, in Cancun on Mexico’s southern Caribbean coast and in Monterrey farther north, where pre-approved immigrants are flown into American airports,” he said.

Aaron Gomez, a city official in Mexicali, Mexico, checks the U.N. website at the shelter he operates, which helps migrants obtain parole authority from the U.S. immigration system to enter the United States via a port of entry in Mexicali in November 2022. Courtesy of Todd Bensman/Center for Immigration Studies

That allows the Biden administration to avoid having to add these aliens to the illegal border crossing statistics.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has maintained his intent to create more legal pathways for hopeful migrants in a more “safe, orderly, and humane” system into the United States—which reflects the U.N.’s goals.

“This has to be what they’re talking about,” Bensman said. “It does two things that are just utterly irresistible—it provides very fast work authorization and enables beneficiaries to avoid having to pay cartel fees to cross.”

However, there are already corruption issues.

Bensman said migrants have told a Tijuana-based pastor at a shelter that local officials are demanding bribes of 5,000 to 10,000 pesos ($250 to $500) for migrants to get on the government shelter lists for more guaranteed, faster border crossings.

CBP didn’t respond to a request from The Epoch Times for the number and nationalities of aliens who have been paroled in and through which ports of entry under this program with Mexico.

As far as reining in the use of parole, Bensman said he thinks a current Florida lawsuit might have the best chance.

The state of Florida filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in February, in part, against the agency’s alleged “abuse of the parole authority.”

“I think that’s the only hope—that they get an injunction, and this thing gets to the Supreme Court, fast,” he said.