Executive action by President Barack Obama is giving more relief to immigrants living illegally in the United States, including stopping deportations that take undocumented parents away from their American-born kids. But the downside to the plan is that families with parents back home or older children living in their home countries can't be reunited except for "brief emergency trips," The Washington Post's Pamela Constable reports: "Now, hundreds of thousands of undocumented families who left children or parents behind are in a special bind. They may still be tempted to arrange illegal cross-border visits, but they have more to lose now if they get caught, because it would jeopardize their new legal status and their ability to support the children they have here."
Undocumented immigrants can only leave the country if they apply for an emergency travel document called "advanced parole," but the applications often are denied at the full discretion of immigration officials, Constable further reports. The definition for "humanitarian" travel includes family funerals, but not family reunions.
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
