Troops worry Trump crackdown puts their immigrant families at risk

[babylonsister]

July 21, 2017 3:48 PM
Troops worry Trump crackdown puts their immigrant families at risk

By Vera Bergengruen

WASHINGTON


President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants is having the dangerous, unanticipated effect of putting additional stress on U.S. troops who have relied on a little-known program to protect their undocumented family members from deportation while the military personnel are deployed to warzones.

“Parole in place” reprieves, known inside the military as PIP, are meant to keep deployed service members focused by easing any worry about the safety of undocumented spouses and immediate family back home. Defense officials say the program is crucial to alleviating unrelated stress on the battlefield by allowing troops’ family members to live in the U.S. without fear of being deported and to apply for a green card without having to leave the country.

But as immigration arrests spike under the Trump administration’s promised crackdown on people in the country illegally, immigration lawyers have begun warning their military clients that they can no longer rely on the PIP program.

“The concern is that it hasn’t been endorsed by the administration, and there are several initiatives that might sweep this into the broader reworking of the immigration system,” said David Kubat, an immigration lawyer and military veteran who serves in the National Guard in St. Paul, Minn..

Kubat said the program affects thousands of military families but doesn’t get the same attention as other special status programs, such as the DACA program that protects people brought to America illegally as children.

“It helps them deploy without being afraid,” said Kubat. “Having your parents, your spouse and your children in a secure status is critical, especially in a stressful environment where you might not speak to them for weeks.”

Many military family members applying for PIP received calls from their immigration attorneys in February, after Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued a memo on implementing Trump’s executive order on immigration. Under the new guidance, the program appeared to have been scrapped. Kelly’s memo stated that with the exception of the Obama-era deferred action policy "all existing conflicting directives, memoranda, or field guidance regarding the enforcement of our immigration laws and priorities for removal are hereby immediately rescinded.”

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