A ‘Gun Loophole’ for More than 2 Million Biden-Harris Migrants Here on Parole
A recipe for mischief, if not disaster
By Andrew R. Arthur on November 26, 2024
The Biden-Harris administration has paroled more than 2 million aliens into the United States—nearly all of them in violation of the terms of the parole statute, section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
What you may not realize is that even though none of those parolees has been thoroughly vetted or lawfully admitted, it’s not illegal for them to possess a firearm, even though gun possession is illegal for most aliens who have been lawfully admitted but who don’t have green cards. For some reason, a White House obsessed with closing gun “loopholes” created a major one of its own.
The “Legal Fiction” of Parole
The aforementioned section 212(d)(5)(A) of the INA provides, in pertinent part, that the DHS secretary may:
in his discretion parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any alien applying for admission to the United States, but such parole of such alien shall not be regarded as an admission of the alien and when the purposes of such parole shall, in the opinion of the [DHS secretary], have been served the alien shall forthwith return or be returned to the custody from which he was paroled and thereafter his case shall continue to be dealt with in the same manner as that of any other applicant for admission to the United States.
The only aliens who seek parole – and thus the only ones who are granted it – are those ineligible to be admitted to the United States, usually because they lack proper admission documents and therefore have no right to be admitted.
As the Fifth Circuit has explained:
parole creates something of legal fiction; although a paroled alien is physically allowed to enter the country, the legal status of the alien is the same as if he or she were still being held at the border waiting for his or her application for admission to be granted or denied.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Gun-Loophole-More-2-Million-BidenHarris-Migrants-Here-Parole
