So Many Errors in CBS News’ Report on Illegal Biden Parole Programs

Home Andrew R. Arthur So Many Errors in CBS News' Report on Illegal Biden Parole Programs So Many Errors in CBS News' Report on Illegal Biden Parole Programs Among other problems, a massive undercount of the number of aliens funneled into the U.S. FacebookTwitterRedditLinkedInEmailCopy LinkPrint By Andrew R. Arthur on July 26, 2023 A July 18 CBS News article captioned "U.S. has welcomed more than 500,000 migrants as part of historic expansion of legal immigration under Biden" is more spin than news.

What CBS News extols as the Biden administration's "Unprecedented use of the parole authority" is, in the Second Circuit's terms, just the latest "Circumvention of congressionally established immigration policy." Note that this authority has been in the law for the past 71 years, and yet none of the 13 administrations since then ever used parole as expansively as Biden, even when that statutory authority was much broader than it is now.

The administration has concluded that the parole of any alien provides a "Significant public benefit" if such action lightens DHS's migrant detention load without stopping any alien from entering illegally.

Again, as the Second Circuit recognized, Congress amended the parole statute in IIRIRA to curb the executive's abuse of the parole authority, but by the INS's own admission in 1982, even the old language was never meant to be interpreted expansively: The legislative history of the parole provision shows a Congressional intent that parole be used in a restrictive manner.

The drafters of the [INA] of 1952 gave as examples situations where parole was warranted in cases involving the need for immediate medical attention, witnesses, and aliens being brought into the United States for prosecution.

Not only is that a transgression of Congress' plenary power, but it's explicitly barred under section 212(d)(5)(B) of the INA, which states that the DHS secretary "may not parole" a refugee unless he "determines that compelling reasons in the public interest with respect to that particular alien require that the alien be paroled into the United States rather than be admitted as a refugee under" section 207 of the INA. At least the outlet could have mentioned that.

The outlet reports the total number of Biden parolees is "more than 541,000": 168,403 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans paroled under the VNHC parole program; 141,200 Ukrainians paroled under "Uniting for Ukraine"; 133,000 under what it describes as the "CBP One app" process; 77,000 Afghans paroled under what it terms the "Afghan resettlement effort", and 22,000 Ukrainians who came under what CBS News labels the "Ukrainian border process".

Court-ordered DHS disclosures in Texas v. Biden reveal that between Biden's inauguration and September 30, 2021 at the Southwest border, Border Patrol agents paroled more than 35,000 illegal entrants into the country, CBP officers at the ports paroled an additional 40,000-plus aliens, and ICE paroled nearly 32,000 more who had originally been encountered by CBP there - almost 108,000 in just over seven months.

In FY 2022, between October 2021 and June 2022, the Biden administration admitted that OFO officers paroled just short of 88,600 aliens they encountered at the Southwest border ports, and you can add more than 40,000 aliens encountered by CBP at that border who were paroled by ICE in that time-period, as well.

That's still more than 896,000 aliens who were paroled into the United States but not included in CBS News' valuation of the administration's "Unprecedented" use of its statutorily limited parole authority.

Including the "at least 541,000" others whose paroles the outlet did tabulate brings the number of aliens paroled into the United States by Joe Biden under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the INA to 1.437 million-plus. 

https://cis.org/Arthur/So-Many-Errors-CBS-News-Report-Illegal-Biden-Parole-Programs