Fact: Several years ago, San Diego was shocked by a local newspaper story that a 30 year-long woman resident Mexican grandmother and businesswoman in next door National City was arrested by immigration officers for being in the country illegally. Her American-born citizen son, a 2nd Lt. in the United States Army stood by watching helplessly. She was jailed; her deportation was imminent. There was nothing he could do but hire a lawyer for five times what he earned.
There is now. It is – Military Parole-in-Place (MIL-PIP)
Someone in the Pentagon managed to insert the program into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020. It is Public Law 116-92. Then President Trump was so busy writing his serpentine signature to the multi-billion dollar bill that paid for our defense and military he didn’t notice that he was legalizing mostly Mexican illegal residents, some who had entered the country “unlawfully” decades before, before Trump was even born.
One should understand the program – Military Parole-in-Place, is a direct benefit for any U.S. soldier, sailor, airman, coast guardsman, National Guard member, Reservist or Marine. If that man or woman has a close relative who is in the country illegally, the service man or woman can sponsor his/her relative for the program.
An application is filled out properly and an interview may be conducted at a nearby USCIS office; that’s all required. Of course, past criminal activity may disqualify a person but if qualified, a “green card” is issued and citizenship can be applied for after five years. The actual language is not “green card” by the way – legally its “Lawful Permanent Residency.”
Usual procedure for application for permanent legal residency requires the applicant to return to their native country for an interview in the U.S. Consulate in that country. Wait time may take five or more years for immediate relatives and 20 years for distant relatives.
Fees? None. Quotas? None. Wait times? None.
Military Parole-in-Place has been a well-kept secret because Trump and his people were too busy screaming the election was rigged to ever notice he signed a bill legalizing potentially thousands of people, people from the two most Trump despised groups in the entire world: Mexicans and American soldiers and Marines.
Let us not forget just days before the 248th birthday of the United States Marine Corps that then President Trump sneeringly called 1,000 Marines buried in France “suckers.” They died in their history making defeat of Germany’s best at Beaulieu Wood in 1918. More Marines died in that one battle than had died in the Marine’s entire 143 year history. Thankfully, Trump was ignorant of what he was signing the day he signed the NDAA 2020 into existence.
It’s not enough for the program to exist if no one knows about it. But someone does.
A retired Marine Lt. Colonel has founded OGN, Our Grateful Nation. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, to handle applications for legalization. It has been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice to provide “immigration legal services.” OGN will operate a centralized processing center and hopes that it will be able to process 1000 applications a month.
It currently is working with the Nevada National Guard and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
OGN estimates that 430,000 present and former service members may have qualified relatives that can be legalized. Between 2-4 million predominantly Hispanic non-citizens may be eligible to legalize under the program because it is only for people not lawfully admitted to the U.S. That covers people who have illegally crossed the border since 1924 when Mexicans were restricted from entering the U.S. without “permission.”
While that Army 2nd Lt. couldn’t lift a finger to help his grandmother when a covey of badge wearing gun-toting immigration officers busted her for being in country illegally, he could help now. Thank you President Trump.
For more information about Our Grateful Nation see the background information printed below or visit www.ognusa.org.
Contreras is a U.S. Marine veteran, author, newspaper/magazine editorialist, former New York Times Syndicate writer and hosts YouTube’s Contreras Report
