Advance Parole Can Trigger a 10-Year Bar

Milagro Delcarmen-Lara returned to the United States on January 1, 2024, after a temporary trip abroad. She used advance parole, a government travel document that allowed her to ask to return without first getting a visa. She had received DACA in 2013. Her husband also had an approved family petition for her, so she asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen an old removal case and let her continue seeking a green card inside the United States.

A 2012 ruling protected people in her situation. It said that a temporary trip with advance parole did not count as leaving the country for the immigration rule that can bar someone for three or ten years because of earlier time in the United States without permission. Many people relied on that protection when they traveled for work, school or a family need.

The Board changed that rule on August 13, 2026. Its new decision says a trip with advance parole can count as leaving the United States for the 10-year bar. The change applies only going forward, so the Board did not use it against Delcarmen-Lara's 2024 trip. Her request was denied for another reason: it was her second request to reopen the case and came more than 16 years after the final order.

What this means for future trips

The 10-year bar can apply when a person spends at least one year in the United States without legal permission, leaves the country, and then asks to enter again within ten years. Immigration law calls that counted time unlawful presence. It is a legal calculation and is not always the same as living in the country without immigration status. Some periods count and others do not, so the date a person first arrived does not give the answer by itself. The new ruling says advance parole no longer prevents the authorized trip from counting as the departure that starts this bar.

Advance parole still has a purpose. It can let a traveler ask Customs and Border Protection to return through a port of entry. It can also keep some pending green-card applications from being treated as abandoned while the person is away. The new ruling removes one protection that the document used to provide for people with enough unlawful presence.

Being allowed back into the country and qualifying for a green card are two separate decisions. A border officer could parole a traveler into the United States. Later, USCIS or an immigration judge could decide that the same trip triggered the 10-year bar and that the person cannot receive a green card unless a waiver or another exception applies.

The ruling does not affect every DACA recipient. USCIS says people do not build up unlawful presence while DACA is active. Time before age 18 also does not count. Days from before DACA, a gap between renewals or a period after DACA ends may still count. This means two people with DACA and identical travel documents can face different risks.

The law also has a three-year bar for some people who have more than 180 days but less than one year of unlawful presence. That rule has extra conditions, including when the person left and whether certain immigration proceedings had started. The Board's written holding directly addresses the 10-year bar. It does not explain every detail of how the new reasoning will apply to the three-year bar.

Trips that happened before the new ruling are treated differently. The Board said people had relied on the 2012 rule for years, so the change should apply only to future travel. It did not use the new rule against Delcarmen-Lara's 2024 trip. The decision does not clearly answer every timing question, such as what happens when someone left before August 13 and was still abroad when the ruling came out.

What the ruling does not change

The ruling does not cancel advance parole for everyone. It does not automatically block every traveler at the airport. It also does not erase a parole entry from a trip completed under the old rule. Its main effect is that some future travelers can trigger a 10-year bar by leaving, even when the government gave them advance parole.

This is not a U visa ruling. It does not change the requirements for Form I-918 or the separate waiver rules that apply to U nonimmigrant status. A U visa petitioner, someone on the U visa waiting list, a DACA recipient and a person with a pending green-card application can have very different immigration histories. Holding the same type of travel document does not give them the same answer.

Anyone considering travel after August 13 now needs more information than the date printed on the advance-parole document. The answer can depend on the person's age, entries, periods of authorized stay, DACA history, pending applications and any removal order. Individual circumstances differ, and a licensed immigration attorney or DOJ-accredited representative can review a person's history before travel.

Court challenges are likely. The Board reversed a rule that had been in place for 14 years, and its own decision notes that a federal appeals court had used the old rule in a 2013 case. A court may now be asked whether the Board read the law correctly and how the change should apply to people who planned travel under the earlier rule. As of August 15, this review had not found a court challenge filed against the new decision.