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Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

I am not native English speaker so I might be misreading, but isn't parole meant to be for people in prison? So how does this have anything to do with getting into the U.S.?

There is already something like what you are suggesting in the U.S. AFAIK, just $500k or $1M depending on the situation.

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Parole is a term used by immigration for cases where they use their own authority to let someone in when the law doesn't quite allow it.

For example in late 2000 the US government didn't get around to renewing the "visa waiver" law in time. Rather than suddenly requiring visas from everybody from the former visa waiver countries (and cause travel chaos), passports were stamped "PAROLED" for visa waiver people (mostly tourists) entering until the law was renewed. (I had a stamp like that in October 2000).

Parole essentially means granting the right to enter or remain the US to an applicant who does not technically meet the conditions for the visa or status. It's usually applied on humanitarian grounds or to fill "gaps" in the immigration system [1] where there would be negative consequences.

It's an attempt to soften the harsh consequences that often arise from these counterintuitive rules in a very technical legal space that is almost impossible to legislatively correct.

[1] https://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens/advance-parole

"Parole" refers to any situation where someone is given some trust for a period of time before they are given complete trust. It usually refers to people who get out of prison but have to check in with a parole officer for a while, but in this case it refers to immigrants being allowed into the country but having to check in with DHS.

Parole in this case is just leave to enter the US.

In this situation the parole is probably in the context of deportation proceedings.

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