It is illegal for any alien to be in the United States without being lawfully admitted and adhering to the conditions of admission. To put it more simply, you cannot enter the United States illegally, nor may you violate the terms and conditions of a lawful admission.

To back up this part of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), in 1996, Congress enacted provisions prohibiting illegal aliens from adjusting status in the United States, basically a 3 year bar for anyone who has 1 year or less of unlawful presence, a 10 year bar for those who have more than one year unlawful presence, and a permanent bar for those who have unlawful presence who attempt to reenter the United States.

A waiver is available, but it has a very high standard. The waiver was also only available if the alien was outside the United States and applying for an immigrant visa at an American Embassy or Consulate. This made it difficult for illegal aliens; they had a high standard to meet for the waiver; therefore they risked leaving the United States and not receiving a waiver, then being stuck outside the United States for 3 or 10 years, or risked a permanent bar by reentering the United States. Also of import, waivers were not available for aliens in removal proceedings or have an outstanding order of removal, i.e. a deportation order or other removal order.

However, the Obama Regime wanted to get around this law that prohibited illegal aliens from adjusting status to legal permanent resident in the United States. So, similarly to what they did with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Obama Regime created an illegal program to benefit these illegal aliens, the Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver program. This program was two-fold: First, allow illegal aliens to apply for the waiver in the United States and, second, stop applying the legal standard for a waiver, “extreme hardship” to a spouse, child, or parent who was a legal permanent resident or U.S. citizen. Basically, the Obama Regime scheme was to approve all waiver applications regardless of whether the alien in question met the legal standard of extreme hardship to a spouse, child, or parent.

Basically, the legal standard was that if an alien were removed, the parent, spouse, or child would die without care or income provided by the alien. The Obama Regime management at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would approve any claim, without serious examination or fraud review.

Sadly, the Trump Administration has done nothing about this problem, other than recalculate how certain non-immigrant students have unlawful presence calculated, which, of course, has been held up by the courts.

And this is what we get: illegal aliens continue to march through the waiver process without any examination of their claims, or adherence to the law. Case in point, an illegal alien who was ordered deported, has obtained a waiver, and is back in the United States.

After almost two years in Mexico, Jorge Garcia — whose deportation in January 2018 became a national story after a Free Press report — is back home in metro Detroit.

Garcia, 41, arrived at Detroit Metro Airport last month on Christmas Day, hugged by his two children and wife shedding tears of joy, his family members said.

“I’m really happy” to be back, Garcia, of Lincoln Park, said Friday. “The last year was very stressful, it got to the point where my blood pressure was very high, I was getting anxiety attacks. … I see it like a nightmare … something like a bad dream.”

Garcia was granted two waivers by U.S. immigration officials with the Department of Homeland Security, said his attorney Mayra Lorenzana-Miles. One of the waivers was to resolve the issue of unlawful presence in the U.S. and the other was to request admission in the U.S. after deportation, Lorenzana-Miles said. Garcia is now a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., getting his official card this week, and is on a path to U.S. citizenship in a few years, she said.

[Deported Two Years Ago To Mexico, Jorge Garcia Of Metro Detroit Returns To US, by Niraj Nirakoo, Detroit Free Press, January 10, 2019]

Now, Garcia has over 30 years unlawful presence and he absconded from a deportation order. That is enough for a permanent bar to returning to the United States. Furthermore, neither his children nor his wife have any condition that requires his presence in the United States. Why did USCIS and the Department of State approve his waivers? Most likely, Deep State saboteurs who want Garcia voting in the 2024 Presidential election.

He will be eligible for citizenship in three years, so that is quite likely. And do you think he will be voting to elect a new people or to close the border? Again we see that President Trump is not insisting on his America First policies be imposed on the bureaucracy. I warned President Trump that USCIS would be a problem. [President Trump Will Have Foes In Immigration Bureaucracy—But Also Friends. They Can Help Him Win, by Federale, VDare, April 25, 2019]

It appears that Ken The Knife still has work to do at USCIS. Ken Cuccinelli should end the Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver program and stop approving waivers that do not meet the extreme hardship standard. The best method to do this is to centralize all applications for waivers in USCIS headquarters and appoint an official to supervise this who understands the law.

But it is not just USCIS that has problems:  someone at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is also under the thrall of Third World nation busters. A black woman from the Caribbean on a student visa was found to be inadmissible, likely due to terrorism concerns, but officials at the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) called up a CBP manager and had the alien admitted.

I want to share with you a very trying experience I had while entering the United States. I was stopped for secondary questioning by US Customs and Border Protection and after several hours of questioning, I was informed that I would be denied entry into the United States. I was also informed that my F1 visa, the student visa that allows me to pursue my Ph.D. in the US, would be canceled. Due to the timely intervention of executive leadership at @cairflorida on my behalf, the decision was reversed and I was allowed entry into the US.

[CBP Denied Entry to Muslim Princeton PhD Student… Until CAIR-FL Intervened!, unattributed, CAIRFlorida, undated]

Apparently, CBP works for Hassan Shibly, a Syrian anchor baby, who has access to “leadership at CBP” who can overturn the legal decisions by front-line officers and managers at CBP. Why is an openly political organization like CAIR that is dedicated to mass immigration have such power and access? Obviously the swamp is still strong.

President Trump should fire Mark Morgan, an Obama retread, who is head of CBP. Nation busting groups should not have access to officials, high or low, nor should President Trump allow officials to act other than in the interests of Americans, not aliens. It is sad that the bureaucrats in CBP and USCIS are more concerned about the lives of aliens than Americans. Time to change the culture at CBP and USCIS.