ATTENTION CURRENT AND FORMER USAF & RR MEMBERS WITH UNDOCUMENTED WIVES, PARENTS, OR CHILDREN
HUGE expansion of “PIP”
Parents & spouses of current USAF or FORMER USAF including Ready Reserves can now apply for status… even those who entered “without inspection.”
This is a HUGE GIFT to our Service Members. We have successfully applied for “PIP” for wives of service members but each USCIS field office had varying levels of knowledge re this relief. Also, this expands PIP to PARENTS of service members which was a very dicey area previously.
When PIP first started, it was only being given to deployable service members or service members who were deploying in a certain timeframe. Now, deployment should not be a consideration at all.
Finally, this policy specifically states the granting of PIP should be to spouses and parents of current and FORMER USAF or Ready Reserve Members. That is HUGE!!!!!
This isn’t a change in the law but in the guidelines to USCIS adjudicators. Nevertheless, it is very clear guidance to approve these requests, so this is a GREAT VICTORY for our service members, both active and retired, and their families!!!!
PIP is a substitute for “legal admission.” You get PIP to show you are “paroled in place” without leaving the U.S. and for one year. In the past, we have applied for PIP and the green card at the same time to make it go as fast as possible. In any case, after you receive PIP, a Green Card should be applied for as soon as possible because the PIP is only for one year.
NOT LEGAL ADVICE.
But, again, this means that with PIP, a spouse, child, or parent of current or retired military, Reserves, or National Guard can get a Green Card WITHOUT leaving the US.
The Immigration Bar and Military Community thanks retired Army Reserve Lt. Colonel Margaret Stock whose lifetime of work has been dedicated to the military and family members of military personnel and without whose accomplishments Parole in Place could never have been expanded in this manner.
Also, we thank Paul Virtue who served as the Executive Associate Commissioner and General Counsel of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Virtue wrote a memorandum on parole of those who “entered without inspection” in 1998 which lays out the legal basis for PIP. See “INS Memo on Authority to Parole Applicants for Admission” e.g. AILA Infonet Doc No. 98082191
