Llámanos Ahora / Call Now

phone call w

323-592-9611

phone call w

323-592-9611

Advance Parole Just Became Extremely Risky

by | Sep 3, 2026

Abogado Sherwin CarballoThe Law Office of Sherwin C. Carballo
5 Stars - Based on 210 User Reviews
Contact Us / Contacto
Abogado Sherwin CarballoThe Law Office of Sherwin C. Carballo
5 Stars - Based on 210 User Reviews

Advance Parole just became extremely risky.

For fourteen years, people with a pending immigration case could travel abroad on Advance Parole, come home, and keep moving forward. That protection is gone.

On August 13, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that leaving the United States on Advance Parole is a “departure” under immigration law. In plain English: for some people, leaving the U.S., even with an approved Advance Parole, can now trigger a 10-year bar to a green card.

If you are holding an Advance Parole document and a plane ticket right now, read this before you go to the airport.

First, What Advance Parole Actually Is

Advance Parole is permission to leave the United States and be allowed back in while an immigration case is pending. You request it on Form I-131, Application for Travel Documents, Parole Documents, and Arrival/Departure Records (https://www.uscis.gov/i-131).

People have used it for important/urgent travel: a parent is dying, a sibling is getting married, a job requires a trip abroad, etc.

The Trap Congress Built on April 1, 1997

To understand why this new decision matters so much, you need to understand one piece of the law that came into effect on April 1, 1997

If you are in the United States without permission, you may be accruing what the law calls unlawful presence. Under INA 212(a)(9)(B), unlawful presence by itself does not punish you. What punishes you is leaving. Specifically:

  • More than 180 days of unlawful presence, then you leave: you face a 3-year bar to coming back.
  • One year or more of unlawful presence, then you leave: you face a 10-year bar.

You can read USCIS’s own explanation of these bars here: Unlawful Presence and Inadmissibility (https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/unlawful-presence-and-inadmissibility).

The departure is the trigger. That single word — “departure” — is what this entire fight has been about.

How Matter of Arrabally Solved the Problem in 2012

In 2012, the Board of Immigration Appeals decided a case called Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly. The question was simple: if someone leaves the country on Advance Parole, with the government’s written permission, and comes right back, did they really “depart”?

The Board said no. It reasoned that a trip on Advance Parole is qualitatively different from other departures, because the government has already agreed in advance that the person will be allowed to return and will keep pursuing the case they filed before leaving. Punishing someone for using a benefit the government handed them would turn that benefit into a trap.

It was a split decision. But it stood for fourteen years, and an enormous amount of legal planning was built on top of it.

What Arrabally Made Possible

Arrabally did two big things.

It let people travel without setting off a bar. Someone with years of unlawful presence could go to a funeral in Mexico or a wedding in El Salvador and come home without triggering a 10-year penalty as long as they had an approved Advance Parole.

It also opened a path to a green card. People who originally entered the United States without inspection generally cannot adjust status here. But someone who leaves on Advance Parole and is paroled back in has a lawful, inspected entry on the record. For many people, that trip abroad was the thing that made adjustment of status possible at all.

For over a decade, that was settled, reliable law. Attorneys advised clients on it. Families made plans around it. People received green cards.

August 13, 2026: Matter of Delcarmen-Lara Reverses It

In Matter of Milagro Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026), the Board of Immigration Appeals overruled Arrabally outright. You can read the full decision here: Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026) (https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1457741/dl?inline=).

The Board’s reasoning was blunt. The word “departure” is not defined anywhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act, so the Board reached for the dictionary definition of “depart” — to go away, to leave — and concluded that a person on Advance Parole who leaves to another country has, quite obviously, gone away.

The Board also pointed out that Congress knows how to carve out Advance Parole exceptions when it wants to. It has done so in other parts of the immigration statute. It did not do so in the unlawful presence provision. To the Board, that silence was intentional.

So, the protection is gone. A trip on Advance Parole is now a departure, and a departure is what triggers the unlawful presence bar.

Does This Apply to Trips You Already Took?

This is the question we are getting most, and the honest answer is: probably not, but the decision leaves a gap.

The Board said it is applying the new rule prospectively — going forward, not backward. It did that specifically because it recognized that people had relied on Arrabally for fourteen years, and that punishing them retroactively would be unfair.

Here is the gap. The decision does not clearly state what date controls — the date you traveled, or the date your application gets decided. Most practitioners are reading it the sensible way: if you traveled on Advance Parole before August 13, 2026, the old rule protects you. But the decision does not spell that out.

Advance Parole Is Not Dead

This decision has caused a lot of panic, and some of it is misplaced. Advance Parole still exists. USCIS still issues it. People can still travel on it.

Here is the key point: this new decision is only harmful if you have unlawful presence in the United States. If you have not accrued unlawful presence, leaving on Advance Parole does not trigger anything.

And unlawful presence is more complicated than most people assume. Time spent as a minor, time during certain pending applications, and time in a period of stay authorized by the government may not count against you. Two people who have both been in the United States for fifteen years can have completely different unlawful presence calculations.

What has changed is that traveling on Advance Parole is no longer something you can do casually. Before this decision, the answer for most people was “you’re fine.” Now the answer depends entirely on your specific history, and getting it can be catastrophic to your immigration case.

Nobody Knows Yet How CBP Will Handle This

We are in genuinely new territory, and we should be honest about that. This decision came from the Board of Immigration Appeals, which handles immigration court cases. It does not tell us how Customs and Border Protection officers at the airport are going to apply it.

There are two possibilities, and both are serious.

Possibility One: CBP Does Not Let You Back In

Advance Parole has never actually guaranteed re-entry. This surprises people, but it has always been true. The document gets you to the port of entry. The decision to actually parole you into the country is a separate, discretionary call that a CBP officer makes when you land. Advance Parole documents have carried that warning in the fine print for years.

What is different now is that CBP has a live ground of inadmissibility to point to. Someone who triggered the 10-year bar by departing is, on paper, inadmissible when they come back and ask to be let in. Whether officers will use that to deny entry is unknown.

Possibility Two: CBP Lets You In, and the Bar Follows You Home

The other scenario is that you are paroled back in without incident — and then the problem shows up later, when you file for your green card. You are now subject to a 10-year bar, and you have two options.

Option one: a waiver. You would need to file Form I-601, Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility, along with your adjustment of status application. That requires proving extreme hardship to a qualifying relative. It is not automatic, it is discretionary.

Option two: wait out the ten years. And here is the one genuinely helpful piece of law in all of this. Under Matter of Duarte-Gonzalez, 28 I&N Dec. 688 (BIA 2023) (https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1568471/dl?inline=), the 10-year bar runs whether you are inside or outside the United States. You do not have to serve it abroad. If you were paroled back in, the clock is running while you are home with your family.

Ten years is still a long time. But it is ten years here, not ten years exiled from everyone you love. That distinction matters enormously.

What You Should Do Right Now

  • If you have Advance Parole and a trip planned, pause. Do not board a plane until someone has reviewed your unlawful presence history.
  • If you are about to apply for Advance Parole, get advice first. The question is no longer whether you can get the document. It is whether you can safely use it.
  • If you traveled before August 13, 2026, do not panic, but do not ignore it either. Get your case reviewed before you file anything else.
  • If you already traveled after August 13, 2026, get help now. There may be waiver options, and the sooner we look at it, the more options you have.

Here is a link to our services page where it discusses different immigration waiver options: https://www.elabogadocarballo.com/immigration-waivers/

Talk to an Attorney Before You Travel

Our office has spent more than fifteen years handling waivers and complex inadmissibility issues, including I-601 and I-601A unlawful presence waivers. If you are considering travel on Advance Parole, or you have already traveled and are worried about what it means for your case, we can review your history and tell you honestly where you stand.

Schedule a consultation before you make travel plans. Once you leave, the trip cannot be undone.

Sources and Links