Manglona: Advance parole is not a permit

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has ruled that the I-512 advance parole authorization is not a permit but a document that evidences authorized stay in the United States.

Manglona discussed the I-512 advance parole authorization issue in her order issued Wednesday denying Dongjun Li’s motion to dismiss count 1 of the indictment that charged him with immigration fraud.

Li, a Chinese national, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in July when he allegedly tried to check-in for an outbound flight to Los Angeles, California, via Narita, Japan, using fake documents. The 38-year-old Li was indicted for immigration fraud and false statement or entry.

In Li’s motion to dismiss the immigration fraud charge, attorney Mark A. Scoggins asserted that because an I-512 Authorization for Parole Document is not among the types of documents specified in the statute, Li’s alleged use of the alleged fraudulent I-512 cannot subject him to criminal penalty.

Scoggins said the statute bars use of a fraudulent visa, permit, border crossing card, alien registration receipt card, or other document prescribed by statute or regulation for entry into or as evidence of authorized stay or employment.

In denying the motion, Manglona said the statute states that “when a parole is authorized for an alien who will travel to the United States without a visa, the alien shall be issued a Form I-512.” Parole temporarily allows a non-citizen entry to the United States.

Manglona said the language of the statute makes it clear that while parolees are not legally admitted into the United States, they are allowed to stay in the United States.

Although parolees remain “constructively detained at the border,” Manglona said that parole allows them “to temporarily remain in the United States pending the review and adjudication of their immigration status.”

“Thus, the I-512 is a document that evidences authorization to stay temporarily in the United States,” she pointed out.

Manglona said it is not necessary for the court to decide whether the I-512 is a document “for entry,” because the I-512 clearly is a document that authorizes stay.

Because the I-512 advance parole authorization form is a document prescribed by statute or regulation as evidence of authorized stay in the United States, it satisfies the law pertaining to immigration fraud, she said. “Count 1 of the indictment, therefore, is sufficient on its face.”

In immigration law, Manglona said, parole is the “legal fiction whereby an alien is allowed to be physically present in the United States for a specific purpose.”

Parole, she said, does not “legally constitute an entry though the alien is physically within the United States.”

Advance parole on the other hand, is an administrative procedure whereby the Department of Homeland Security may allow non-citizens who reside in the United States and have applied for adjustment of status to return to the United States after a brief absence.

Manglona said a regulation states that advance parolees traveling to the United States without a visa “shall be issued Form I-512.”

She noted that advance parole plays a special role in the CNMI during the first two years of the transition to full federal authority over immigration.

The judge said certain aliens present in the CNMI on the transition period’s effective date are eligible for advance parole to allow them to return to the CNMI after traveling abroad.

According to the indictment, Li used a forged U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service Form I-512 on July 15, 2011, as evidence of authorized stay or employment in the U.S. The document was accompanied by an authorization for extension of parole of alien in the U.S. dated July 11, 2011.